Christ the King

Last Sunday of the Year © -  Christ the King

24 November 2013

 Matthew 25, 31 to 46

 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  

He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.  “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

 “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,  I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’  “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

With eyes wide open

José Antonio Pagola

The first Christian  communities lived through very difficult years. Lost in the vast Roman empire, in the midst of conflicts and persecutions, these Christians looked for strength and inspiration hoping for the early return of Jesus and remembered his words: “Keep watch, be on your guard. Keep your eyes wide open. Be alert.”

   Do the warnings of Jesus to be on our guard still  mean anything to us? What does it mean to us Christians to put our hope in God keeping our eyes wide open?  Will we allow hope in the ultimate justice of God  to be definitively exhausted in our secular world for the majority of innocent victims who suffer through no fault of their own?

   Precisely, the easiest way to discredit Christian hope is to expect our eternal salvation from God while we turn our backs on the suffering there is already now in the world. One day we will have to admit our blindness before the judgment seat of Christ: When did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or naked, sick or in prison, and did not help you? This will be our final exchange with him if we live with our eyes closed.

   We have to wake up and to open wide our eyes, to be vigilant to see much beyond our petty interests and worries. The hope of a Christian is not a blind attitude for it never forgets those who suffer. Christian spirituality does not consist only in looking within, for one’s heart is attentive to all those left to their fate.

   In Christian communities we have to take ever greater care that the way we live our hope does not lead us to indifference to or neglect of the poor. We cannot remain isolated in our religion so we do not hear the cries of those who daily die of hunger. We may not feed our illusion of innocence in order to excuse our tranquility.

   Cannot this hope in God which forgets those who live on this  earth without any hope, be considered a religious version of a certain kind of rash optimism, lived without clarity or responsibility?  Cannot a seeking of one’s own eternal  salvation with one’s back turned on those who suffer not be accused of being a subtle egoism extended towards what lies beyond ?

   Probably, the little sensitivity towards the immense suffering there is in the world is one of the most serious symptoms of the ageing of present day Christianity. When Pope Francis calls for “a more poor church and a church of the poor”, he is proclaiming loudly his most important message to Christians of prosperous countries.

Translated from Spanish by Vally D'souza sj