Today is the final feast of our entire Liturgical year, the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, or more simply, Christ the King. When we hear that title of Jesus, the King of the Universe, it is tempting to think of that kingship in overly exterior terms: the kingship of Jesus Christ is out there somewhere, that He is reigning beyond the bounds of all created things. This is partially true. Jesus does reign in Heaven with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit and is king of all creation, but the readings point us somewhere different than just the exterior realities today. The first reading gives us the initial clue. It is an apocalyptic reading from the book of Daniel in which he describes a king ruling over all people:
As the visions during the night continued, I saw
one like a Son of man coming,
on the clouds of heaven;
when he reached the Ancient One
and was presented before him,
the one like a Son of man received dominion, glory, and kingship;
all peoples, nations, and languages serve him.
So Jesus’ kingship isn’t just an impersonal kingship over the whole world, but a personal kingship over all people. But that might even seem too distant to really make a difference for each of our lives. So then we turn to the second reading, from the Book of Revelation. Here we encounter a prayer to Jesus: “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.” So it isn’t just that we are part of a huge, faceless kingdom, but each of us is a place for the kingdom. The kingdom is in each of us. Each of us has a priestly role to play, meaning that we have a sacrifice to offer up. The kingdom isn’t out there, it is within, the kingdom is our hearts, which the Lord, with abundant grace, invites us to offer to Him, the Father and the Holy Spirit, and to others.
The place of the kingdom is our hearts because that is our core. So living for the kingdom means opening up our hearts to the love of the King, that glorious love He pours out as He reigns on the most unexpected throne: the Cross. Our hearts can be that place which is transformed by being ruled by the crucified and risen love of Christ. Popes sometimes write letters to the whole Church called encyclicals. Pope Francis, in his recently released encyclical to all of us, said this: “if love reigns in our heart, we become, in a complete and luminous way, the persons we are meant to be, for every human being is created above all else for love. In the deepest fibre of our being, we were made to love and to be loved.”
We are called to allow that love of Christ to transform our hearts to be hearts set aside for Him, living for his kingdom, which is beyond this world, a kingdom of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We are called to have those kingdom hearts, hearts which are in this world, but not of it; hearts which are set aside for God and others to such an extent that we live differently.
I want to give you a couple of snapshots of kingdom hearts in people that I know. First, there is my friend, Craig Johring. Craig grew up in small town Nebraska and in college became involved in a Christian campus ministry. Through connections he made in that ministry, Craig ended up being connected with those serving the poor in Mexico. He fell in love with this work and has spent the majority of his life in Mexico since that time. He ended up founding a nonprofit organization called Hope of the Poor which aims to help the poor in Mexico escape lives of poverty. He brings the love of Christ to those that the rest of society has given up on: those with addictions, those selling their bodies to others, those living in garbage dumps and sorting through trash to sell recyclable materials.
I was blessed to take a day trip with Craig to a garbage dump outside Mexico City and work alongside him bringing food and the love of Christ to those in the dump. It was a profound day. I saw firsthand the way Craig loved and cared for the people there. It was incredible to watch. Those poor at the dump lit up like lightbulbs when they saw Craig. And this is what he’s dedicated his entire life to doing: helping bring Jesus’ love and life changing help to those in poverty to help them have a new start. When I got to speak with Craig that day he also told me about working with women in prostitution and the joy of helping them break free from that life. Craig is so dedicated to that mission that he lives as a single man. His family is literally the poor and forgotten of the world. His is a kingdom heart, not devoted to worldly gain, but drawn by the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus towards a kingdom beyond this world.
Another snapshot I want to give is of my cousin Sue and her husband Steve. Those aren’t their actual names. I’ve changed them because they are humble people and would be super embarrassed to know I’m mentioning them in a homily. Sue and Steve are currently raising their family of four in Columbus. They have chosen to homeschool their kids and are doing all they can to raise them in the beauty of the Catholic faith. When I visit their home, I am always blessed to see the ways they are organically bringing their children up to love Jesus and each other. Sue drifted away from her Catholic faith for several years, but ended up returning to the Church. Steve considered himself an agnostic for a good chunk of his life but recently came into the Church. I have been blessed to see their journey together. In them, I recognize two kingdom hearts which are trying to pass on that zeal for the kingdom to their kids.
The Lord Jesus, our King, invites each of us to answer the call of His love in our hearts. He desires our hearts to be cultivated for Him and His rule so that they can grow in His grace toward the kingdom of Heaven. As we heard Jesus say to Pontius Pilate in the Gospel today: “My kingdom does not belong to this world.” Your heart and mine, claimed by Christ the King for Himself, do not belong to this world. The temptation that each of us faces is to ignore that we, in our depths, are claimed for a kingdom which is beyond this world. The temptation for us is to live as though we were made only for this world, to give ourselves to worldly distractions. But the love of Christ calls out and reminds us that we were made for His kingdom, a kingdom based on love which conquered death! We are called to live in the world but not to be of this world. How will you respond to His love in your heart today?
+ Heavenly Father, thank you for claiming our hearts for the Lordship of Christ. Jesus Christ, our Heavenly King, help us open our hearts to be ruled by your love and drawn toward Heaven. Holy Spirit, give us the courage to make those daily choices to live in your love so that our hearts can be kingdom hearts under the loving Kingship of Jesus. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen. +