Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ

The solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe marks the end of ordinary time and our liturgical year. Next week Advent and our new year begins. We close out our year with a celebration in which we acknowledge and adore Jesus as King of kings, Lord of lords, the beginning, and the end.

This feast was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 in response to growing nationalism and secularism. It was instituted to promote, not just the worship of Jesus privately in our hearts, but in the public square as well. Pope Paul VI gave this feast its current name and raised it to the level of a solemnity in 1969 when he moved it to the last Sunday in the liturgical calendar.

The entire Liturgy of the Word bears witness to the lordship of Jesus. In the first reading, Daniel prophesied about Christ’s eternal and peaceful reign. He identifies him as the “Son of Man” whose kingship shall not be destroyed. In our psalm response we proclaim that the Lord is King robed in majesty. In the second reading, John calls him “the first born of all creation…the Alpha and the Omega”. Jesus is the ruler of all of the kings of the earth and he has made us into a kingdom for God, his Father. Our praise reaches its crescendo with our exclamation of alleluia, itself a song of praise to God. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Alleluia!

In the gospel, Pilate and the Jewish leadership ignorantly excoriate Jesus and send him to be crucified. Their hearts were hardened and they refused to believe the truth he preached about his kingdom. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. For them everything ended here on earth. They believed that if Jesus were truly who he claimed to be God would never allow him to die on a cross.

Many of us have fallen into the same trap as Pilate and the Sadducees. We have been deceived by what we see in the world and believe everything ends here on earth. The world tells us that everything is permissible, but nothing is forgiven. The truth, however, is that the kingdom of this world will pass away at the end of time and that the kingdom of Christ will last for all eternity.

Today’s solemnity is here to remind us that Christ is the King of the universe. We need to do more than just acknowledge this with our lips. To properly worship God, we must allow him to reign in our lives. Your heart is a throne that has room for only one ruler. Those of the world make themselves the king. Their kingdoms will fade away like the setting sun.

The question each of us has to answer is this; “Who sits upon my throne?” If Jesus is truly the Lord and King of our lives, we will hear his voice and harken to his commands. Put God first in your life, loving him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love your neighbor as you love God. All of Jesus’s teachings boil down to these two commands.

“Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”