34th Sunday of Ordinary Time

This last Sunday of the Church’s calendar year (before we begin anew with the Advent season) ends with Jesus celebrated as “Christ the King,” a King who rules over the Cosmos and a King who even death could not contain. And our King is always beckoning us to greater intimacy with his kingly heart, a heart that beats for the poor and downtrodden.

It’s so tempting to think that being “a basically nice person” is all God wants from us in order to be with him in Heaven. But Jesus sets the bar quite high, asserting that, “what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me. And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

It’s important to not only believe the right doctrines and dogmas of the faith and then keep to ourselves—we’re called to put our love into action, serving one another and bearing another’s burdens. As our King has been generous to others, he desires our generosity.

There are local and global peoples we can help, in however small of a way. We can’t fall into the paralysis of thinking we have to solve all the issues of the world. That’s up to God. Our job is to do our small part for the stranger, the hungry, the sick, the lonely, and the imprisoned. Our King shows us great mercy and we must pay that mercy forward.

Jesus never asks us to do anything he didn’t undertake himself. He was a King made low and met us in our sin. What’s more, his commands are not orders directed from a tyrannical power on high compelling us to live in servile fear—He calls us as a good King who wants us to imitate his example, to love one another as as he has first loved us (John 13:34).

These are the marching orders of our King. Will we obey them?

What ministry of the parish could I support? (Project Calcutta, Magi Ministry, etc)

How might the Lord be calling me to “think outside the box” to serve those in our local community?

Is Christ the King the center of my life? Do I struggle to trust him and his goodness?