Congratulations, everyone!
God has seen fit to let us live to complete another liturgical
year! We have journeyed with Our Lord
from his birth through his ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and into the
growth of the Church and the spread of the Gospel to all the nations. Now, at the end of the year, we reflect on
the Final Judgment, when Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, will pass sentence
on each and every human being, establishing justice, punishing evil and rewarding
love and self-sacrifice. The Feast of
Christ the King is a profession of our faith that ultimately there is a moral
standard to the universe, that all is not in flux or random, that the Good, the
True, and the Beautiful triumph in the end over darkness, ugliness, and
selfishness.
Our First Reading comes from Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17:
Thus
says the Lord GOD:
I
myself will look after and tend my sheep.
As
a shepherd tends his flock
when
he finds himself among his scattered sheep,
so
will I tend my sheep.
I
will rescue them from every place where they were scattered
when
it was cloudy and dark.
I
myself will pasture my sheep;
I
myself will give them rest, says the Lord GOD.
The
lost I will seek out,
the
strayed I will bring back,
the
injured I will bind up,
the
sick I will heal,
but
the sleek and the strong I will destroy,
shepherding
them rightly.
As
for you, my sheep, says the Lord GOD,
I
will judge between one sheep and another,
between
rams and goats.
Ezekiel is my favorite prophet, and the one I know the best.
Ezekiel 34-37 is a discrete unit within
the Book of Ezekiel, from which our Reading is taken. I call these four chapters, “Ezekiel’s Book
of Comfort,” and in many ways they are parallel to Jeremiah’s similar unit,
Jeremiah 30-33. In both cases, the
prophet devotes an extended amount of text to the description of the coming New
Covenant (or in Ezekiel’s terminology, “covenant of peace”) and its economy
(i.e. arrangement).
Much of Ezekiel 34 is devoted to a condemnation of the
leadership of Israel and Judah, both past and present. Ezekiel denounces the “shepherds” of God’s
people who did not put foremost the welfare of the sheep, but rather their own
profit and pleasure, killing and abusing the sheep in order to enrich
themselves.
In the ancient Near East, the image of king as shepherd of
his people was very common, and it is used, for example, of King David (2 Sam
5:2). Ezekiel 34 has in mind some of the
evil descendants of the Davidic line, as well as various other royal officials
who took advantage of their power.
Ezekiel 34 stands as a perpetual warning against selfishness and
self-centeredness among those who have responsibility for the leadership of
God’s people.
On behalf of the LORD, Ezekiel promises that the day will
come when God himself will come down to shepherd his people. This was, in fact, God’s original plan at
Sinai: a theocracy, or direct rule by God.
Due to the hardness of their heart, Moses allowed the people to choose a
human king (Deut 17:15ff), an option they invoked much later in their history,
under Samuel (1 Sam 8). David eventually
became king, and he was a man “after God’s own heart,” and God granted him a
perpetual covenant of kingship (2 Sam 7, Psalm 89).
What of Ezekiel’s promise that God himself would one day be
shepherd of his people? Is this a
revocation of the promise given to David?
No, because in a passage skipped by our First Reading, God promises to
restore David to the throne: “And I will set up over them one
shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be
their shepherd” (34:23). Curiously, God
promises “I myself will be shepherd
of my sheep” (34:15) but also “My servant David … shall be their shepherd”
(34:23) yet there will not be two shepherds, but “I will set up over them one
shepherd” (34:23). How is that going to
work, O Lord? Only if God and David
become one shepherd, one person. That is
the hypostatic union. That is Jesus
Christ, fully God and fully man: king because he is divine, and king because he
is the Son of David.
Responsorial Psalm Ps
23:1-2, 2-3, 5-6:
R/ (1) The Lord is my shepherd;
there is nothing I shall want.
The
LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
In
verdant pastures he gives me repose.
R/ The Lord is my shepherd; there
is nothing I shall want.
Beside
restful waters he leads me;
he
refreshes my soul.
He
guides me in right paths
for
his name's sake.
R/ The Lord is my shepherd; there
is nothing I shall want.
You
spread the table before me
in
the sight of my foes;
you
anoint my head with oil;
my
cup overflows.
R/ The Lord is my shepherd; there
is nothing I shall want.
Only
goodness and kindness follow me
all
the days of my life;
and
I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
for
years to come.
R/ The Lord is my shepherd; there
is nothing I shall want.
Psalm 23 was well-known already in Ezekiel’s day, and
Ezekiel 34 employs imagery from the Psalm.
This beautiful poem was recited by the ancient Israelite worshiper who
entered Solomon’s Temple to sacrifice to God and pray. It has remained a favorite of the people of God
into the New Covenant era. Among the
Church Fathers, together with the Song of Songs it served as one of the primary
texts to use for mystagogy or
sacramental catechesis. In this Psalm,
the Fathers saw images of the Sacraments through which Jesus shepherds us as
his sheep. So the “restful waters” that
“renew the soul” are Baptism, the “verdant pastures” and “table set before me”
is the Eucharistic banquet, the “head anointed with oil” is Confirmation and
Anointing of the Sick, etc., all of which lead us to eternal life: “I shall
dwell in the house of the LORD forever (Heb. ‘for length of days,’ i.e.
indefinitely, forever).” The whole
relationship with the Lord is covenantal: “only goodness (Heb. tov) and mercy (Heb. hesed, covenant fidelity) shall follow
me all the days of my life.” Psalm 23
already anticipated the New Covenant and the intimacy of the believer with God
through Jesus Christ, who touches us physically in the sacraments.
Reading 2: 1 Cor
15:20-26, 28
Brothers
and sisters:
Christ
has been raised from the dead,
the
firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
For
since death came through man,
the
resurrection of the dead came also through man.
For
just as in Adam all die,
so
too in Christ shall all be brought to life,
but
each one in proper order:
Christ
the firstfruits;
then,
at his coming, those who belong to Christ;
then
comes the end,
when
he hands over the kingdom to his God and Father,
when
he has destroyed every sovereignty
and
every authority and power.
For
he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
The
last enemy to be destroyed is death.
When
everything is subjected to him,
then
the Son himself will also be subjected
to
the one who subjected everything to him,
so
that God may be all in all.
St. Paul reflects on the kingship of Jesus Christ. Jesus has already conquered death in
principle, through his own resurrection.
Twice St. Paul calls Christ “the firstfruits,” and there is liturgical
significance of this statement: the Feast of Firstfruits celebrated the
beginning of the harvest, and was held on the day after the Sabbath of Passover
Week, i.e. the Sunday after Passover.
This, of course, was the day on which Jesus rose from the dead: the
Sunday after Passover, Easter Sunday.
Jesus rose on the Feast of Firstfruits, the firstfruits of the
dead. Jesus is the first to experience
his resurrected body, but all who are united to him will also experience the
transformed body at the “final harvest,” the end of time.
Christ is King and in the end of time will remove all
competing human authorities, until “all things are under his feet”, a reference
to the “Son of Man” from Psalm 8:
3
When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the
moon and the stars which thou hast established;
4
what is man that thou art mindful of him,
and
the son of man that thou dost care for him?
5
Yet thou hast made him little less than God,
and
dost crown him with glory and honor.
6
Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands;
thou hast put all things under his feet …
Psalm 8 was originally composed by David as a thanksgiving
for the royal status God had granted to David.
The hyperbolic poetry of the Psalm, however, better fits David’s divine
son, Jesus Christ.
When Jesus has established his perfect reign over the
universe, he hands all things to God the Father. There is a reciprocal relation between the
Father and Son: they do not compete for kingship but share it. So Father and Son sit on the same throne (Rev
3:21).
Modern society has for the most part given up hope that
there is meaning to life and some kind of good resolution to the story of
humanity. Bill Nye the science guy sums
up current attitudes at an address he gave to the American Humanist Association
a few years ago:
I'm
insignificant. ... I am just another speck of sand. And the Earth really in the
cosmic scheme of things is another speck. And the sun is an unremarkable star.
Nothing special about the sun. The sun is another speck. And the galaxy is a
speck. I'm a speck on a speck orbiting a speck among other specks among still
other specks in the middle of specklessness. I suck.
What a wonderful attitude! But that’s where Western civilization has
arrived. Against this, the Catholic
Church still proclaims: everything is significant. We come from love and are headed to
love. There will be a final judgment and
ultimate justice. The kingdom of this
world will become the kingdom of Christ.
Gospel Mt 25:31-46
Jesus
said to his disciples:
"When
the Son of Man comes in his glory,
and
all the angels with him,
he
will sit upon his glorious throne,
and
all the nations will be assembled before him.
And
he will separate them one from another,
as
a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
He
will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then
the king will say to those on his right,
'Come,
you who are blessed by my Father.
Inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For
I was hungry and you gave me food,
I
was thirsty and you gave me drink,
a
stranger and you welcomed me,
naked
and you clothed me,
ill
and you cared for me,
in
prison and you visited me.’
Then
the righteous will answer him and say,
'Lord,
when did we see you hungry and feed you,
or
thirsty and give you drink?
When
did we see you a stranger and welcome you,
or
naked and clothe you?
When
did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’
And
the king will say to them in reply,
'Amen,
I say to you, whatever you did
for
one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.’
Then
he will say to those on his left,
'Depart
from me, you accursed,
into
the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
For
I was hungry and you gave me no food,
I
was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
a
stranger and you gave me no welcome,
naked
and you gave me no clothing,
ill
and in prison, and you did not care for me.’
Then
they will answer and say,
'Lord,
when did we see you hungry or thirsty
or
a stranger or naked or ill or in prison,
and
not minister to your needs?’
He
will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you,
what
you did not do for one of these least ones,
you
did not do for me.’
And
these will go off to eternal punishment,
but
the righteous to eternal life."
This Gospel Reading is one of the most sobering in the
Lectionary, not the least because it implies that those who face Christ at the
final judgment may be surprised at the sentence awaiting them. Actually, both the sheep and the goats seem
not to realize their true spiritual standing, whether that is righteousness or
wickedness. So we need to make a serious
examination of conscience.
The criteria by which the Son of Man makes judgment is based
on “whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine.” We generally assume that this refers to acts
of kindness to the poorest of the poor.
However, we can’t jump to that conclusion immediately.
The first and primary sense of this text is Christ’s unity
with his members, that is, which his Church.
The point of the parable is: the nations are judged based on how they
treated Christians, those identified with Christ. The meaning of Matt 25 is similar to Acts
9:4: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
Jesus says to the pre-conversion St. Paul.
Persecution of Jesus’ disciples is persecution of himself. Therefore, the first level of meaning of Matt
25 here is that Jesus regards the least service done for one of his
disciples—the “least of my brothers”—as service done to him.
By extension, there is application to the poor, because we
do not know the identity of Jesus’ brothers.
Among the poor, the marginalized, and the downtrodden may be many who
are “brothers of Christ.” So we must
assume that all persons are brothers of Christ either in spe (in hope, i.e. potentially) or in re (in fact).
So yes, by all means every one of us needs to make an
examination of conscience on whether we are doing anything to alleviate the
suffering of the poor, the hungry, thirsty, naked, imprisoned, among us.
However, this Gospel text speaks especially to the situation
of the “brothers of Christ” who undergoing persecution even now at the hands of
communists in China and North Korea, Muslim extremists, and others around the
world. We think of the abused,
displaced, and imprisoned in Nigeria, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and
elsewhere. Where is justice? Do lies triumph in this world? No, says our Gospel. Injustice is ephemeral and passing. All in this world will give an account of how
they treated the mystical body of Christ.
And we ourselves will give account, first of all, on what we have done
to alleviate the suffering of those who share with us the communion of saints;
and then also, the suffering of the poor generally.
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