Christ the King

The first liturgical year (A), like the other two, is aptly concluded with the celebration of the feast of Christ the King. We Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that as such he will be the Judge of all human beings at the end of time. That is why the Church in its liturgy makes use of Our Lord's own metaphorical description of the Last Judgment as reported in the Gospel of St Matthew.

In Matthew's Gospel, the first one of the three Synoptics, we have already come across a number of metaphorical allusions to the final reckoning at the end of the world in the form of contrasts between the good and the bad. For it is ultimately upon this basis that the final reward or the ultimate condemnation will be based.

In Matthew's Gospel we have come across stiff comparisons between the wheat and the chaff, or between the fruitful tree and the sterile one, the builder on rock and the builder on sand, good fish and bad fish, those with wedding garments and those unsuitably dressed, the provident servant and the abusive one, the groom-maids with sufficient oil and those found wanting, those who make profitable use of talents and the negligent ones, and also between the sheep and the goats.

Against such a rich background we can better understand the central point of today's Gospel: the assembly of all the nations and the sorting out of the good from the bad, in the presence of the Son of Man sitting on his throne and surrounded by his angels.

While facing this highly impressive tableau, we get, so to speak, three surprises. First, the king and judge of all turns out to be not some wielder of military might usually associated with ruthless rulers, such as we have seen in not so remote times, but by Jesus of Nazareth who was nothing less than personified meekness.

The second surprise is that the sole criterion of judgment is how people have treated needy human beings, such as those who are hungry, thirsty, naked or imprisoned. The third and final surprise is that the King has taken such a behaviour, be it aid or neglect, as directed personally to him. Hence the very words of the divine judge: "Whatever you have not done to the least of your brethren, you have not done it to me!"

When dealing with the Church's doctrine regarding the Last Judgment, which is a fundamental truth of our faith and which we have learned from childhood as the final part of the Apostles' Creed, a few theological reflections would not be out of place here. We have learned to distinguish between God's judgment at the moment of death and that taking place at the end of the world. Are these two different judgments?

Since we shall no longer exist in time after our own death, theologians today look at the particular judgment and the final judgment as essentially one and the same. Whatever the case, if there shall be two judgments, the second one could not possibly be different from the first.

I have just come across a beautiful reflection on Christ the King attributed to Pope John Paul II of happy memory: "How marvellous is this King who renounces all the signs of power, the instruments of dominion, force and arrogance, and wishes to reign only with the power of truth and love, with the power of interior conviction and sheer abandonment!" These words reflect well Our Lord's own reply to Pilate when asked whether he was truly a king: "Yes, I am a king! But my kingdom is not of this world!"