Solemnity of Christ the King - Cycle A

Ez 34:11-12, 15-17
1 Cor 15:20-26, 28
Mt 25:31-46

The Solemnity of Christ the King suggests many themes related to the defense of life and care of the vulnerable. His Kingdom is a Kingdom of life and justice, as the Preface reminds us. It is a Kingdom of Life because Christ identified himself on various occasions as “the life” and said that his mission was to bring life. To stand with Christ is to stand with life, and to stand with life is to stand against whatever destroys life. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death,” the second reading tells us. Union with God means we share in the process by which he destroys the power of death (e.g. abortion) in the world.

The Kingship of Christ also reminds us that not only as individuals, but also as nations, we are subject to his laws. We do not want a theocracy, in which, for example, civil law would require belief in the Eucharist or attendance at Sunday Mass. We do, however, want a society that acknowledges its dependence on God, its ultimate accountability to him, and its adherence to those fundamental requirements of his law relating to the protection of basic human rights.

The first reading and psalm speak about God’s care for the sheep, particularly the weaker ones. His care for his people puts the same obligation on us, as the Gospel relates. What we do to the least, we do to him. Defending the unborn, who are the weakest of the weak and poorest of the poor, is required by the teaching of this Gospel passage. When we defend the child in the womb, we are defending Christ in the womb. That is why it is our business to intervene.