A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 7, n. 52)
Christ the King, Year B – November 22, 2009
“Christ the Redeemer, the Almighty King”
BIBLE READINGS
Dn 7:13-14 // Rv 1:5-8 // Jn 18:33b-37
(N.B. Series 7 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year B from the perspective of the Second Reading. For reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year B based on the Gospel reading, please scroll up to the “ARCHIVES” above and open Series 1. For reflections based on the Old Testament reading, open Series 4.)
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
Filled with thanksgiving for the many blessings we have received in this liturgical year 2009 that is ending, we gaze anew and with greater love on our Redeemer Jesus Christ. He will come again at the end of time as King of creation and Lord of history. In today’s Old Testament reading (Dn 7:13-14), the prophet Daniel’s fascinating vision of one like a Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven, who receives the homage of all peoples, nations and languages and wields an everlasting dominion, is a prophecy par excellence of Christ’s glorious coming in judgment at the end time or parousia. The final advent of the Messiah-Almighty King is one of restoration and communion.
This Sunday’s Gospel reading (Jn 18:33b-37) adds a poignant element to the glorious depiction of Christ’s kingship: through suffering to kingship. The Savior King redeems through paschal suffering. The Benedictine scholar Alban Boultwood remarks: “The last Sunday of the liturgical year is dedicated by the Church to the feast of Christ the King … the true King, whose cross wins redemption for sinners, and whose death wins victory over all the powers of death. Christ gained his victory and established his kingdom not through the power of worldly success, but through a love stronger than all the powers of this world. His authority was from above, from his perfect union with the Father’s will. Yet his kingship was very truly in this world, for he won his redeeming victory by entering completely into the human condition, including its suffering and death … Humans are called and enabled to live not to sin but to God, in true newness of life. This is the universal kingship of Christ: everything is now renewed and glorified in him; nothing is left unredeemable: Take courage I have overcome the world (Jn 16:33) … Therefore all his followers in the royal priesthood must always form a serving, suffering, loving Church. We inherit the kingship of Jesus by fulfilling the mystery of his blessed Passion, death and resurrection in the witness of our own personal life.”
Today’s Second Reading (Rv 1:5-8) magnificently portrays the vast expanse of God’s Kingdom-Reign throughout all time: past, present and future. Christ’s redeeming power penetrates every moment of human history. He is “the Alpha and the Omega … the one who is and who was and is to come, the Almighty” (v. 8). The Second Reading likewise acknowledges Christ’s sacrificial love and its fruitfulness: redemption from sin and the establishment of a kingdom of priests to serve God the Father. As the faithful witness of the truth about God’s redeeming love for us, as the firstborn of the dead who guarantees our own resurrection and victory over death, and as the ruler of the kings of the earth who wields power over all peoples and creation, Jesus the Redeemer and Almighty King is sure to come at the end time: “Behold, he is coming amid the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him” (v. 7).
On this beautiful feast of Christ the King, we – the members of the kingly, priestly and holy people formed by his paschal sacrifice – are challenged to avow his kingship and reign over us. We must put his words of truth at the very core of our life and demonstrate our faithfulness in all situations. Our actions must mirror the compassionate and forgiving actions of Christ. In imitation of our Redeemer King, who is both priest and sacrificial victim, we must witness the Good News of salvation, even at the cost of our life. Let us therefore gaze upon Christ the King, whose heart was pierced while enthroned on the cross. On the throne of grace at Calvary, the King-Shepherd was drawing all peoples to himself and leading them into God’s eternal kingdom of love, justice and peace. Our priestly vocation in the heavenly kingdom obliges us to serve the cause of life and love, to the glory of God the Father.
The following testimony of Bill Pelke illustrates how the forgiving love of the Redeemer King on the cross transcends time and space, impelling his disciples to channel that grace into the “here and now” (cf. Jan Petroni Brown, “From Hatred to Mercy” in THE WORD AMONG US, July 2006, p. 51-56). By imitating Christ’s compassionate acts, we promote and hasten the coming of his kingdom of justice, peace and love in today’s world.
(The) urge to extend compassion can lead to expressions of forgiveness that are more public. Bill Pelke, cofounder of Journey of Hope, helped to lead an international campaign to save the life of the fifteen-year-old girl who had killed his grandmother. As a result of Pelke’s work, more than two million people signed petitions protesting her execution in 1989, and Pope John Paul II asked that her life be spared. The effort was successful: Paula Cooper’s sentence was commuted to sixty years in prison. (…)
Only a “big God” could have brought Bill to the point of forgiving such a brutal crime. Ruth Pelke, the grandmother he knew as “Nana”, was a gentle woman who had trustingly opened her door to Paula Cooper and three other ninth-grade girls. Pretending to be interested in Bible lessons, the teens just wanted money to play arcade games. Once inside, they stabbed the seventy-eight year old woman over thirty-three times, took ten dollars, and drove off in her car.
In the months that followed, Bill felt that God was calling him to forgive the girls, especially Paula, who was considered the ringleader. It was beyond him. Painful images prevented him from feeling any compassion, he says. He kept picturing Nana “butchered on the dining room floor – the same dining room where our family gathered every year for Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and birthdays.”
Bill’s moment of conversion came a year and a half later, as he began his three-to-eleven shift at work. Sitting fifty feet aloft in a crane cab, he visualized the photo of his grandmother that had accompanied the newspaper accounts of her murder. It showed a silver-haired woman with a sweet smile and wearing a light blue dress. This time, though, he saw something distinctly different in the familiar picture. Tears were flowing from Nana’s eyes and down her cheeks. “At first I thought they might be tears of pain”, he says, “but I immediately realized they were tears of love and compassion for Paula Cooper and her family.”
In his book Journey of Hope, Bill writes: “As I sat in the crane, I pictured an image of Jesus crucified on the cross. I pictured the crown of thorns dug into his brow. I envisioned his bloody hands and feet and the nails driven through them. I recalled what he said: Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing. I began to think that Paula Cooper didn’t know what she was doing when she killed Nana. A person who knows what they are doing does not take a twelve-inch butcher knife and stab someone thirty-three times.”
With tears “flowing like a river”, Bill begged for the strength he needed to forgive. From that moment on, it was as if a weight was lifted from his heart. He was finally able to picture his grandmother not as she had died but as she had lived – “what she stood for and what she believed in, and the beautiful, wonderful person that she was”.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
1. How does the prophet Daniel’s vision of the enthronement of the Son of Man give you strength to be faithful to God in moments of duress, trials and difficulties?
2. Are you willing to participate in Christ’s paschal mystery as Redeemer King and to embrace the principle: through suffering to his kingdom?
3. Do you look forward to the final advent of Christ the Redeemer King and the Pantocrator, the Almighty One and Master of everything?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
Leader: Loving Father,
we thank you for guiding us in our spiritual journey
through the Church’s liturgical year.
The year of grace 2009
is crowned with the Feast of Christ the King.
He is our Master-Shepherd and the Lord of history.
He is the Pantocrator - the almighty Lord of heaven and earth.
As we remember the past with gratitude
and live the present with enthusiasm,
we look forward with confident hope
to the final advent of Jesus your Son, our Redeemer King.
Jesus Christ is the faithful witness of your unmitigated love.
He is the firstborn of the dead who raises us up to life.
He is the ruler of the kings of the earth.
Wielding eternal dominion over all creation,
he makes us a kingdom of priests.
In Christ and in the Church,
we thus commit ourselves totally to your saving will.
Let us serve wholeheartedly the cause of life, justice and truth.
Lord God,
be mindful of our vocation to Christ’s royal priesthood.
Bless us and strengthen us.
Form us into a serving, suffering and loving Church.
Make us efficacious instruments of your grace.
Help us to be true witnesses of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom value,
now and forever.
Assembly: Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, who has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father, to him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.” (Rv 1:5b-6)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Pray that the Reign of God may be acknowledged and embraced by all. By your works of love, justice and peace on behalf of the poor and the needy, endeavor to promote the Kingdom value in the “here and now”.
B. ACTION PLAN: To enable us to give homage to Christ the Redeemer King and almighty Lord, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR: A Weekly Pastoral Tool (Year B, vol. 5, n. 52).
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US