VincentWiki:Reflections/26 November 2006

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Thirty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B - Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, lowly (Zech. 9:9)

As I said at the end of my reflection last week, I, a beggar, owe it to other beggars to tell them where to find bread. If it is not enough for me to love if my neighbor does not love him, it is likewise not enough for me to eat bread if other beggars do not eat it. Moreover, the story of Christianity should continue being told. Also, one should underscore—as did Pope Benedict XVI last November 12 when he denounced the injustice that condemns more than 800 million people to hunger—that the daily bread we ask for in the Lord’s Prayer is not “my” but rather “our” bread ([1]).

So then, it seems to me, Christianity cannot be reduced to Christendom simply (kingdom, by and large, in the past). For Christianity points to the kingdom or authority that is very different from what we usually know on earth. Of course, there are socio-democratic kingdoms and states that have concern for the poor and the less fortunate, but these do not ordinarily aspire to bring about communities made up of people who devote themselves to the teaching of the apostles, to communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to prayer, and who are of such one joyful heart and simple mind that they sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need, so that there is no needy person among them.


Full Reflection: Thirty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B - Jesus Christ, King of the Universe