Luke 23:35-43

S T. LU K E
23:35-43
 HE SAVED OTHERS BY
SACRIFICING HIMSELF
Luke 23:35-43

The people stood watching, and the

rulers even sneered at him. They said,
“He saved others; let him save himself
if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen
One.”
The soldiers also came up and mocked
him. They offered him wine vinegar
and said, “If you are the king of the
Jews, save yourself.”
There was a written notice above him,
which read: THIS IS THE KING OF
THE JEWS.
One of the criminals who hung there hurled
insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save
yourself and us!”
But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you
fear God,” he said, “since you are under the
same sentence? We are punished justly, for we
are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man
has done nothing wrong.”
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you
come into your kingdom.”
Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you
will be with me in paradise.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

 What is the meaning of Christ the King?
Christ the King is one of the most important titles of Jesus.
Even though Jesus Christ was not a king in the earthly sense,
He is the divine King of the Universe, who unites all of creation
with the Father. As St. Paul tells us,

1 Cor. 15:25-28 For [Christ] must reign until he has put all his
enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
For God has put all things in subjection under his feet. . . .
When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will
also be subjected to Him who put all things under him, that
God may be all in all.
Pope Pius XI instituted Pope Pius XI universally instituted The Feast of
the Feast of Christ the
King in his encyclical Christ the King in 1925 in his encyclical Quas
Quas primas of 1925, in Primas. Pope Pius XI connected the denial of
response to growing
secularism and Christ as king to the rise of secularism. At the
nationalism, and in the time of Quas Primas, secularism was on the
context of the
unresolved Roman
rise, and many Christians, even Catholics, were
Question. doubting Christ’s authority, as well as the
Church’s, and even doubting Christ’s existence.
Pope Pius XI, and the rest of the Christian world,
witnessed the rise of dictatorships in Europe, and
saw Catholics being taken in by these earthly
leaders
Pius hoped the institution of the feast
would have various effects.
1.) That nations would see that the
Church has the right to freedom, and
immunity from the state.
2.) That leaders and nations would see
that they are bound to give respect to
Christ.
3). That the faithful would gain strength
and courage from the celebration of the
feast, as we are reminded that Christ
must reign in our hearts, minds, wills,
and bodies.
Christ the King Sunday used to be
celebrated on the last Sunday of
October, but since the calendar
reforms of 1969, the feast falls on the
last Sunday of Ordinary Time, which
is the Sunday before Advent. It is
fitting that the feast celebrating
Christ’s kingship is observed right
before Advent, when we liturgically
wait for the promised Messiah
(King).
We need to follow Christ the King’s lesson of humble service
to the truth. Christ has come to serve and to be of service to
others. Hence, we are called to his service - service to the
truth. In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus saying that the reason
for his coming – the reason that he was born – was to “bear
witness” to the truth. The truth to which Jesus bears witness
by His Life and which he teaches us is that God, his Father, is
also our loving and forgiving Father, so we are all His
children, forming one body. Hence, whatever we do for His
children, and our sisters and brothers, we do for Him.
So we are called to be a people who reach out to embrace the
enemy and the stranger, a people who are called to glory in
diversity, a people who will endlessly forgive, a people who will
reach out in compassion to the poor and to the marginalized sectors
of our society, a people who will support one another in prayer, a
people who will realize that we are called not to be served, but to
serve. In other words, servant-leadership is the model that Christ
the King has given us. “For the Christian, ‘to reign is to serve him,’
particularly when serving ‘the poor and the suffering, in whom the
Church recognizes the image of her poor and suffering founder’”
(CCC #786).
In this feast of Christ the King, may the statement:
“Christ the King” will not just fade out. May it be a
statement of faith in us: the mystery that brings each and
everyone of us into the tremendous realization that His
Kingship links our lives into the divine destination in the
Kingdom of God. The Kingdom where the devil has no
power to conquer and we who believe and put our trust
and confidence in His love, will not be conquered but,
associating our faith in the fashion of His love and
mercy, will truly conquer evil with the love of the
Kingship of the Christ.
Christ the King in 2021
is on the Sunday, 21st of
Nov