A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (# 52)
Christ the King, Year C – November 21, 2004
“Into Your Kingdom …”
BIBLE READINGS
2 Sm 5:1-3 // Col 1:12-20 // Lk 23:35-43
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
There is something beautiful and heartwarming in righting a wrong. In her article, “It’s Never Too Late,” in the excellent inspirational book, A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul (ed. Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, Health Communication, Inc., 1996, cf. p. 328-329), Marilyn Manning tells of a communications course that she attended. The instructor asked the participants to list anything in their past of which they felt ashamed, guilty, incomplete or that they regretted. After they had made the list, the instructor then suggested that they find ways to make amends, apologize to people or take some action to right any wrongdoing. Marilyn narrates the story shared by another participant, Jimmy.
While making my list, I remembered an incident from high school. I grew up in a small town in Iowa. There was a sheriff in town that none of us kids liked. One night, my two buddies and I decided to play a trick on Sheriff Brown. After drinking a few beers, we found a can of red paint, climbed the tall water tank in the middle of the town, and wrote on the tank, in bright red letters: Sheriff Brown is an s.o.b. The next day, the town arose to see our glorious sign. Within two hours, Sheriff Brown had the three of us in his office. My friends confessed and I lied, denying the truth. No one ever found out. Nearly 20 years later, Sheriff Brown’s name appears on my list. I didn’t even know if he was still alive. Last weekend, I dialed Information in my hometown back in Iowa. Sure enough, there was a Roger Brown still listed. I dialed his number. After a few rings, I heard: “Hello?” I said: “Sheriff Brown?” Pause. “Yup.” “Well, this is Jimmy Calkins. And I want you to know that I did it.” Pause. “I knew it!” He yelled back. We had a good laugh and a lively discussion. His closing words were: “Jimmy, I always felt badly for you because your buddies got it off their chests, and I knew you were carrying it around all these years. I want to thank your for calling me … for your sake.”
Jimmy’s protracted repentance is similar to that of the “good” thief who felt it was not futile, nor too late to avail of the compassionate heart and forgiveness of the crucified King. Hanging on the cross beside Jesus, he avowed the power of Christ’s eternal kingdom and pleaded to have a share in it. Today’s solemn feast of Christ the King helps us to focus on the all-inclusive, eternal kingdom that Christ actualized by his paschal mystery and continues to make present in time and space through the power of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of the Church.
In a papal document promulgated on December 11, 1925, Pope Pius XI promulgated the feast of Christ the King. According to Harold Buetow: “In initiating this feast, the Church wanted to take our worship of Jesus from the privacy of our hearts and to proudly proclaim his public sway as well.” The true meaning of Christ’s kingship, however, has to be seen against the biblical antecedent of the Shepherd-King. The liturgical scholar, Adrian Nocent explains: “There were numerous symbols and pre-figurations of this crucified King. David, for example, is such a pre-figuration and type, for he receives royal anointing as shepherd-king. We must dwell for a moment on the special character of a king in Israel. He was not a king such as the pagans had. The people of Israel were God’s people and belonged to him alone, so that the king’s role could only be to direct and lead the people for the time they were entrusted to him. The king was thus meant to be a manifestation on earth of God’s presence and power. At the same time, his function is a sacred one, for he is the anointed of the Lord. God manifests his presence to his people through the person of the king; through him, too, God manifests his sovereignty, power and glory. He is thus a sign of God.”
In the biblical ideal, the king is the anointed one who shepherds and gathers God’s people. Lamentably, however, there had been too many cases of corruption of this ideal. The biblical scholar, Eugene Maly comments: “The history of Israel’s kingship shows a frequent disregard for God’s sovereignty, a disregard that the prophets continuously denounced. But even the bitter experience of human kingship was not without value. It brought home to the more religious persons of Israel the unparalleled character of Yahweh’s kingship. He was all that they were not. And because of him the people could look forward to an end-time king who would fulfill all the promises that these ancient tribes hoped for in seeking a king. That end-time king is described in the Old Testament in what are called the royal messianic prophecies. He is presented as a descendant of David, the one king who was thought to have realized in someway the hope of Israel … In Jesus’ time the hope for the coming of just such a king burned brightly. And in that time of political subjection, the Jewish people yearned for the independence and greatness they associated with David’s reign a thousand years earlier … The evidence is conclusive that Jesus avoided the title of king during his ministry because he did not wish to be understood as fulfilling a political role. Rather, he spoke openly and often of the Kingdom, or reign, of his Father to which he was bearing witness and which he was inaugurating. The Kingdom was, above all, a spiritual one, but affecting the whole of human society.”
The kingship of Jesus Christ is primarily a spiritual-eschatological reality. The Shepherd-King supremely exercised his kingdom ministry upon the cross of affliction and glory. The divine kingdom established by his triumph over the forces of evil through his death on the cross and subsequent enthronement at the right hand of the Father will be gloriously revealed at the end-time, the parousia. This Sunday’s Gospel reading (Lk 23:35-43) shows how the crucified Christ, in exercising his tremendous power as Shepherd-King by forgiving a repentant criminal, brings salvation history to its goal: redemption and restoration in the name of Jesus.
The Gospel episode proclaimed in the worshipping assembly on the last Sunday of the liturgical year depicts Jesus as the “king of shreds and patches” though in reality, he is the “king of eschatological glory”. The evangelist Luke delineates both the negative and positive responses of the people to the enigmatic person of Jesus as he hung on the cross.
The religious leaders, soldiers and an obstinate criminal humiliated him, and one after the other they challenged him to save himself. The Jewish rulers who sneered at him taunted: “He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God” (Lk 23:35). Even the soldiers jeered at him, saying: “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself” (Lk 23:37) as the inscription that loomed above the cross insultingly proclaimed: “This is the king of the Jews” (Lk 23:38). One of the criminals hanging there also abused him: “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us” (Lk 23:39). The other criminal, however, reproached the one who cursed Jesus, reminding him that Jesus was innocent, but as for the two of them, they had received a just sentence. The taunting cry, “Save yourself” was part of the ultimate temptation to detract Jesus from obediently following the Father’s saving will. The exegete, Robert Karris comments: “This becomes a refrain of taunting. These taunts recall Jesus’ temptations in Lk 4:1-13 as Jesus is now tempted to save his life not by giving it away but by holding on to it (Lk 9:24). What will save Jesus is his faith in a gracious God and Father, who will raise him from the dead.” For us believers who now contemplate this tragic crucifixion scene, the abuses hurled at Jesus were ironic: the crucified One is all that is denied of him.
As a counterpoint to the rejection of Jesus by the leaders, soldiers and the unrepentant criminal, Luke depicts the touching personal response of the “good” thief. The dying criminal pleaded to the one who gave him ultimate hope: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Lk 23:42). The crucified King responded compassionately to his faith invocation: “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk 23:43).
The Benedictine scholar, Jerome Kodell elucidates: “The incident of the good thief is unique to Luke … He asks Jesus to remember him when he begins his reign. He means the definitive messianic kingdom that Jesus expected at the end of this present age, but in Luke’s theology it also refers to the time of Jesus’ exaltation through his resurrection and ascension. Jesus promises him a place in Paradise today, because the death of Jesus is beginning the exodus (Lk 9:31) that will open a new way of salvation.” The word “Paradise” is derived from a Persian term denoting an exquisite, enclosed garden. The Paradise promised by Jesus is the heavenly dwelling that he prepares for his disciples, as his Father prepared it for him (Lk 22:28-29). The Paradise to be relished by the repentant thief and by his faithful ones is the eternal kingdom into which Christ the King enters through his death. By his saving grace, he will lead his faithful disciples who had the courage to participate in his redemptive Passover into this kingdom that is ruled and blessed by God. Delving into the biblical meaning of Paradise, Robert Karris intuits: “This rich image encompasses the return to original creation, the eating of the tree of life, and fellowship with the righteous. The gates of Paradise have been reopened by the obedience and faith of the New Adam.”
At the end of the liturgical year, it is most fitting that the Church resounds the prayer invocation of the repentant thief: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Lk 23:42) and listens trustingly to the crucified King’s compassionate assurance of salvation: “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk 23:43). As we conclude a grace-filled Church year, a holy season of breaking the Bread of the Word and of actualizing the Eucharistic Mystery in a self-giving life of service and love, we - the community of disciples - discover more and more that the eternal and universal Kingdom of Christ is approaching in its radical fullness: the Kingdom of truth and life, the Kingdom of sanctity and grace, the Kingdom of justice, love and peace.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
A. Are there moments in our life when we challenge the kingship of Christ and his compassionate rule over us? Have we ever negated and renounced the kingship of Christ on the cross?
B. What are the instances in our life when we turn to the Shepherd-King and humbly appeal to him: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom”?
C. How do the words spoken by Jesus on the cross to the repentant thief impact our life of faith: “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise”?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
(From the prayers of St. Bernard of Clairvaux)
Leader: Blessed are they in whom Jesus will reign forever, for they shall reign with him, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Oh how glorious is that kingdom where kings are gathered together to give united praise and honor to the King of kings and Lord of lords, in the contemplation of whose splendor the just shall shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.
Assembly: Oh that he may deign to come and save me on the day when he delivers up his kingdom to his God and Father, so that I may see the joy of his chosen ones and rejoice in the gladness of his people. Then I too shall be able to praise him together with his inheritance.
Leader: And now, Lord Jesus, come and remove the stumbling blocks within the kingdom, which is my soul, so that you who ought to may reign in it.
Assembly: Jesus is my Lord. I keep myself for him since I acknowledge his rights over me. To me he is God, to me he is the Lord, and I declare: I will have no king but the Lord Jesus! Come then, Lord, reign in me, for you are my king and my God.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Lk 23:42).
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Pray as a mantra, that is, repeatedly and devoutly until it transforms you, the “good” thief’s prayer invocation: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
B. ACTION PLAN: Next week we begin a new liturgical year. As a help in making the celebration of the Church year more meaningful, please invite three or more friends to visit the PDDM website (www.pddm.org // www.pddm.us) for the following pastoral tools:
- BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy (Year A)
- EUCHARISTIC YEAR PASTORAL TOOL: Eucharistic Adoration Celebration through the Liturgical Year (Year A).
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
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