Dear brothers and sisters,
On the Feast of Christ the King, let us reflect on who we are as human beings, what we really are.
Throughout our lives we have different identities. Halloween is not so long ago. Children dress up and are something else on this day. A vampire, Frankenstein, Harry Potter or a skeleton. When children are little, they want to be a policeman, a doctor, a fireman or anything else they can think of. As we grow older, we learn different things that we can rely on throughout our lives and that define our personalities:
We learn to play a musical instrument - we are musicians. We learn a trade - we are craftsmen, bankers, farmers, social workers. We join the military - the uniform makes us part of that group and we build our identity around it. We become a priest or join a religious order - we take on that identity.
And at the same time, we can have different roles in our lives at the same time. You are a father, a mother in the morning, then behind the counter at work, in the evening you are a cook for your family, and in the evening you are a host for a party.
And if you are the boss of a big company and you are used to giving different orders all day long, come home in the evening and try to treat your wife the same way!!! That’s not possible. That's when the different identities come into conflict. Because in one role you have to be the boss, in the other role you are a partner.
All the different things we do every day or throughout our lives make up our personality, our identity. But behind it all, there is usually one person, one human being, who unites all of this. And at baptism, God puts a crown on that person's head: we are anointed as a king or queen. We have a royal dignity in everything we do.
And at the same time we are "children of God", "co-heirs with Christ" and therefore have a share in his kingdom (2nd reading). It is a dignity we wear under all the hats we wear during the day. And at the end of the liturgical year, we are already looking forward to Christmas, which is just around the corner. (In the stores, Christmas has been there since Halloween!) Then we see that our "King" Christ is born very humbly, in a stable, with animals. So, we see God also has different roles here: he is a child, he is poor, he is homeless, is outcast.
God can unite all these roles in Himself. He is the king! On one hand he is in solidarity with the poor and needy and on the other hand he takes care about all in need. And if we look in the history of philosophy the ideal king was the “good king”. And a good king can unite all these qualities and roles in himself so that he knows the people and all their ways of life and can govern accordingly. He has compassion. And Jesus himself shows us the qualities of this “good king” in the gospel of Matthew: The King in Mt 25:34ff.
Are we aware of this when we go about our daily lives? Or when we are dissatisfied with our lives? That behind everything is the dignity of God that we received at our baptism?
During our youth retreats, we did an exercise with the youth in which they had to balance a book on their heads. All the young people stood up. Even those who often hunched over walked upright. You could see later at the other events that they were still trying to walk upright. This is the attitude of kings! Confident, upright, aware that I am a king.
That is what we have received in baptism: a self-awareness that we are children of God and that “nothing can separate us from the love of Christ”.
Amen.
~ Prior, Fr. Anastasius Reiser, OSB