When we were baptized, we were
consecrated into Christ’s ministry as priest, prophet and king. Priest so that we can offer up prayers as we
are doing now in this Eucharist, prophet so that can always proclaim the truth,
and king so that can serve others.
Christ was not a king that lorded over people. He was a servant-king and a merciful king. We celebrate his kingship today and are
reminded that we are called to serve our brothers and sisters as Christ our
King did.
Last week, we had a wonderful
family festival here at the parish.
Everyone had a great time, and it allowed us the opportunity to get to
know each other through our shared work.
It allowed me as a priest to get to know people in a different way in
that joyous atmosphere. People that I
would not normally have a chance to talk to after Mass would come up to me and
share their hopes and dreams for our parish, and I had some wonderful conversations. Yet, and I say this as a full confession, for
every wonderful encounter I had with a parishioner or a visitor, there were two
or three moments where I was pulled aside in the middle of the work of the
festival by someone because they saw a priest and decided that the joyful chaos
of a festival was as good a place as any to just unload on the priest. And that’s fine. That’s why I’m a priest, but there’s been one
individual that’s been on my mind all week.
He was one of those two or three that pulled me aside from work outside
to talk to me about something. He did so
on Friday for an extended period of time and when we were done I said, “why don’t
we table this until next week because this really isn’t the place?” It wasn’t an urgent problem. It wasn’t even a problem at all. It was just a person that wanted to chat, at
length, with a priest. Fair enough. On Saturday, this gentleman tried to stop me
again to continue our conversation even though I was bustling from one end of
the fair to the other. Then came Sunday…I
was behind one of our food booths where we had just finished roasting an entire
pig. It looked delicious, and there was
a line of people waiting to be served. One
lady, bless her heart, waited all 7 hours for it to finish roasting. So I was there with the volunteers slicing
the meat with the biggest knife you can possibly imagine in my right hand. I was chopping up the meat with urgency to
feed the waiting patrons when the gentleman crossed the rope line and tapped me
on the shoulder and said, “Father, I know you’re hungry, but….” I turned around and faced this poor soul with
that big old knife in my right hand and quickly cut him off with a stern and
deep, “Not now!” I went back to work, but
briefly peered over my shoulder to see the gentleman leaving the same way he
got in. Never saw him or heard from him
again.
This is what has been on my
mind this entire week especially in light of today’s gospel. Sure I can excuse this by saying that there is
a time and a place for everything, but that just doesn’t cut it with me when it
comes to the possibility of losing a soul.
I could not be bothered, whether I was genuinely busy or not was no
excuse. Christ was quite literally dying
on the cross, painfully gasping for every breath when the good thief asked for
forgiveness and to simply be remembered by the Lord when he came into his
kingdom. Our dying Lord did one better
by promising the blessed thief nothing less than paradise that very day. What is striking about Christ on the cross is
that when he seems so very vulnerable is when he is in fact at his most
powerful. There on the cross he is destroying
sin and death. There on the cross he is
making Satan tremble. There on the cross
he is redeeming you and me. There on the
cross is where he received his crown.
Not a crown bedecked by jewels and gold, but a crown of thorns. Unlike the authorities and soldiers below
him, the good thief recognizes that Jesus is King, recognizes the love
emanating from that cross. This is what
people must see in us if we are indeed followers of Christ the King to say
nothing of what people must and should see in their priests.
So that is what has been on my
mind. We share in Christ’s kingship
which means that at all times we should serve one another with love, with
mercy, with compassion and, yes, with a tremendous amount of patience. Imagine the patience our Lord had with the
disciples who couldn’t grasp the simple concepts of the Kingdom of God, and yet
our Lord entrusted the Church to them.
On this solemnity of Christ the King, we ask the Lord to help us be true
sharers in his kingship because we fall short so many times. We long to hear the same words that the good thief
heard. Those blessed words that brought
him paradise. That is why this day and
every day our prayer must be the same as his:
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
