November 23, 2025
The Solemnity of Our Lord
Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
Lectionary: 162
Reading
1
In those days, all
the tribes of Israel came to David in Hebron and said:
"Here we are, your bone and your flesh.
In days past, when Saul was our king,
it was you who led the Israelites out and brought them back.
And the LORD said to you,
'You shall shepherd my people Israel
and shall be commander of Israel.'"
When all the elders of Israel came to David in Hebron,
King David made an agreement with them there before the LORD,
and they anointed him king of Israel.
Responsorial
Psalm
R. (cf. 1) Let
us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
I rejoiced because they said to me,
"We will go up to the house of the LORD."
And now we have set foot
within your gates, O Jerusalem.
R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
Jerusalem, built as a city
with compact unity.
To it the tribes go up,
the tribes of the LORD.
R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
According to the decree for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
In it are set up judgment seats,
seats for the house of David.
R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
Reading
2
Brothers and
sisters:
Let us give thanks to the Father,
who has made you fit to share
in the inheritance of the holy ones in light.
He delivered us from the power of darkness
and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,
in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation.
For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he himself might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile all things for him,
making peace by the blood of his cross
through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come!
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
The rulers sneered
at Jesus and said,
"He saved others, let him save himself
if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God."
Even the soldiers jeered at him.
As they approached to offer him wine they called out,
"If you are King of the Jews, save yourself."
Above him there was an inscription that read,
"This is the King of the Jews."
Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying,
"Are you not the Christ?
Save yourself and us."
The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply,
"Have you no fear of God,
for you are subject to the same condemnation?
And indeed, we have been condemned justly,
for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes,
but this man has done nothing criminal."
Then he said,
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
He replied to him,
"Amen, I say to you,
today you will be with me in Paradise."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112325.cfm
Commentary on 2
Samuel 5:1-3, Colossians 1:12-20 and Luke 23:35-43
Today, the last Sunday of the Church year, we celebrate the
Feast of Christ the King. It is one of the most beautiful and meaningful feasts
of the year.
The concept of king and kingdom is at the very heart of
Jesus’ message to us. He came to inaugurate among us the Kingdom of God. By
this we understand that complex of people and communities which have totally
accepted and assimilated the vision of life under God which Jesus proclaimed.
It is a vision, not only for a minority sect among the peoples of the world,
but a call that is valid for all, a message which contains the deepest hopes
and longings of peoples everywhere.
To take on board this message is to enter a life of
fullness, of deep happiness and satisfaction. It is not necessarily a life
without pain or suffering. In fact, pain and suffering may be integral to the
very development of the Kingdom vision in our lives. It is a life which
essentially involves other people, who on the one hand are agents of my
personal growth, and who on the other, depend on me to be the agents of their
growth.
Behind all this is the figure of Jesus Christ, our King. In
himself, he embodies the whole vision of the Kingdom by the way he lived,
spoke, worked, taught, healed, liberated, and finally sacrificed his life in
love for us.
In today’s Scripture readings, we are given two
extraordinarily contrasting images of our King. They are complementary and we
cannot have one without the other.
In the reading from the Letter to the Colossians we have a
description of the Son as emanating from the Father with all the power and
dignity of God. The letter tells us that we have been:
…transferred…into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom
we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
We gain our freedom through his “forgiveness of our sins.”
To enter the Kingdom is to experience being brought from
darkness into light and we gain our freedom through the forgiveness of our
sins. To be free and to be in sin are mutually exclusive.
Who is this Son? Paul says:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of
all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things
visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all
things have been created through him and for him.
And Paul says:
He himself is before all things, and in him all things
hold together.
In other words, before anything was created, the Son
existed.
This is the special gift that the Son is for us. Through his
taking on himself our human nature, we have been given access to the very being
of God himself. We have access to the way God thinks, the way God loves. Being
made in his image, we are called also to reflect in our lives the way God
thinks and loves. And so the Son is called Pontifex (Latin,
‘bridge-builder’) and ‘Mediator’—for in his humanity as Jesus, he is the
visible link between God and ourselves.
In the man Jesus, we have an intimate access to God, and yet
God remains transcendent and, in many respects, unknowable and unattainable. In
Jesus we see God as—to use Paul’s phrase:
…only a reflection, as in a mirror… (1 Cor
13:12)
When Jesus speaks and acts, it is both a man and God who
speaks and acts, but the fullness of God cannot be accessed through the human
body of Jesus. So it is that all the prayers of the Church go through Jesus
to the Father. Jesus is the Way; the Father is the End, the Ultimate Goal.
But the letter goes further, for it says that:
He is the head of the body, the church; he is the
beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first
place in everything.
The body of the risen and glorified Jesus is not now a human
body, but the whole Christian community taken together. It is now our calling
and responsibility to be the mediating agent between God and the world. It is
for us to proclaim the Kingdom both in word and in the way we live together,
because:
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if
you have love for one another. (John 13:35)
Together with Jesus as the Head of our Body, we have a
special mission to be pontifex and mediator between God and
the world.
In the Gospel, we are transported to an altogether different
scene, a scene that can scarcely be reconciled with the image of the Second
Reading. Jesus, our King, is hanging nailed to a cross between two other executed
criminals. On the sign above his head are the words:
This is the King of the Jews.
On each side are his two ‘courtiers’, a pair of murderous
gangsters. Apart from the terrible physical pain he experiences, Jesus has been
stripped of all dignity as he hangs there naked before a mocking world. This is
the final ‘emptying’ (Greek, kenosis) described in the Letter to
the Philippians (2:7). Is this truly, as described in the Second Reading:
…the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all
creation…
Is this the same One through whom “thrones or dominions or
rulers or powers” were brought into being? No wonder that Paul says the Cross
of Jesus is a scandal:
…a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles… (1:Cor
1:23)
For our part, can we see and understand that this moment of
utter degradation is in truth the most glorious moment in the life of Jesus?
The moment when he gave the:
…uttermost proof of his love…
(John 13:1, Knox Bible translation)
Below the cross, the religious leaders, who engineered his
execution, now mock the Teacher and Wonderworker who drew huge crowds, saying:
He saved others; let him save himself if he is the
Messiah of God, his chosen one!
The soldiers, too, only knowing by hearsay that he claims to
be a ‘king’, join in the jeering, as does one of the criminals beside him, who
says:
Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!
But it is the other criminal who shows deeper insight. He
fully acknowledges his own guilt, but sees that Jesus is totally innocent of
any wrongdoing. And he turns to Jesus, addressing him with a strange intimacy:
Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
It is an acknowledgement of Jesus’ Kingship. Once again,
Jesus sees not the stereotype nor even the vicious past of this man, but only
the repentant individual before him here and now. That is enough, and he says:
Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.
What an extraordinary thing to say! There is no delay, no
testing of the genuineness of the man’s repentance. Today with Jesus, he enters
into eternal glory, into the very fullness of the Kingdom—even before any of
Jesus’ other disciples, before his own Mother!
Here is the wonder of our King and what it means to be part
of his Kingdom. It is beautifully described in the Preface to the Eucharistic
Prayer in today’s Mass:
As King he claims dominion over all creation,
that he may present to you, his almighty Father,
an eternal and universal kingdom;
a kingdom of truth and life,
a kingdom of holiness and grace,
a kingdom of justice, love and peace.
Our King has been chosen for us by God, but it is for each
one of us to profess our allegiance to him. We do this, not just by saying it
in so many words, but by taking on board the fullness of his life and teaching
which we find in the Gospels and in the rest of the New Testament. And as
members of his Body, we too—in some strange way—share in that Kingship. Today
we are called to work together to expand the reality of his Kingdom in our
families, in our society and in the world generally.
Lord Jesus, your Kingdom come!
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Sunday,
November 23, 2025
Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ,
King of the Universe
Luke 23:35-43
Opening prayer
Holy One, God of the
mountain, You who make of our fragile life the rock of Your dwelling place,
lead our mind to strike the rock of the desert, so that water may gush to
quench our thirst. May the poverty of our feelings
cover us as with a mantle in the
darkness of the night and may it open our heart to hear the echo of silence
until the dawn,
wrapping us with the light of the new morning, may bring
us,
with the spent embers of the fire of the shepherds
of the Absolute who have kept vigil for us close to the divine Master, the
flavor of the holy memory. 1. Lectio
a)
The
text:
The rulers sneered at Jesus
and said, "He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one,
the Christ of God." Even the soldiers jeered at him. As they approached to
offer him wine they called out, "If you are King of the Jews, save
yourself." Above him there was an inscription that read, "This is the
King of the Jews." Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus,
saying, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us." The other,
however, rebuking him, said in reply, "Have you no fear of God, for you
are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned
justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man
has
done nothing
criminal." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your
kingdom." He replied to him, "Amen, I say to you, today you will be
with me in Paradise."
b)
A
moment of silence:
Let us allow
the voice of the Word to resonate within us.
2. Meditatio
a) Questions:
•
The people stayed there watching. Why do you
never take a stand concerning the events? Everything that you have lived,
listened to, seen… you cannot just throw it away only because an obstacle seems
to make it difficult! Move, do something!
•
“If You are the King of the Jews, save
Yourself”. How many attempts and threats do we make with God in prayer? If You
are God why do You not intervene? There are so many innocent people who suffer.
If You love me, do what I tell You and I will believe You… When will you ever
stop dealing with the Lord as if you knew more than He what is good and what is
not?
•
Jesus, remember me. When will you see in Christ
the only TODAY who gives you life?
b) Key for the reading:
•
Solemnity of Christ, King of the Universe. We
would expect a passage of the Gospel of those which are more luminous, and
instead we find ourselves before one of the darkest passages… The amazement of
the unexpected is the most suitable sentiment to enter into the heart of
today’s feast, the amazement of the one who knows that he cannot understand the
infinite mystery of the Son of God.
•
v. 35. The people stayed there watching, as for
the leaders, they jeered at Him with these words: “He saved others, let Him save
Himself if He is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.” Around the Cross are
gathered together many of those who have met Jesus during the three years of
His public life. And, here, before a Word nailed on the wood, are revealed the
secrets of the heart. The people who had listened to and followed the Rabbi of
Galilee, who had seen miracles and wonders, are there watching: the perplexity
on the faces, thousands of questions in the heart, the disillusionment and the
perception that everything ends like this! The leaders go through all that has
happened while they say the truth concerning the person of Jesus: the Christ of
God, the Chosen One. They ignore God’s logic even if they are faithful
observers of the Hebrew law. That very despicable invitation: Let Him save
Himself… indicates the hidden purpose of their actions: salvation is won by
oneself by the observance of the commandments of God.
•
vv. 36-37. The soldiers mocked Him too, coming
up to Him, offering Him vinegar, and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews,
save Yourself”. The soldiers, who have nothing to lose in the religious field,
get fierce against Him. What do they have in common with that man? What have
they received from Him? Nothing. The possibility to exercise, even if for a
short time, power over someone cannot be allowed to fall! The power of
possession is intertwined with evil and they claim the right of derision. The
other one, defenseless, becomes the object of their enjoyment.
•
v. 38. Above Him was an inscription: This is the
King of the Jews. Truly, a mockery of their own guilt: Jesus is guilty for
being the King of the Jews, a guilt which in reality is no guilt. In spite of
what the leaders had intended, in all their ways, to crush the royalty of
Christ, the truth is written by itself: This is the King of the Jews! This one,
not any other! It is a royalty which goes across the centuries and asks those
going by to stop and fix their thought on the novelty of the Gospel. Man needs
someone to govern him, and this someone can be only a man crucified out of
love, capable to stand on the wood of condemnation so as to be found alive at
the dawn of the eighth day: A King without a scepter, a King capable of being
considered by all a criminal but without rejecting His love for man.
•
v. 39. One of the criminals hanging there abused
Him: Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us as well!” One can be on the
cross for various reasons just as one can be with Christ for various reasons.
Being near to the cross divides or unites. One of the two who were near Christ
insults, provokes, ridicules or derides. The objective is always the same: Save
yourself and us as well! Salvation is invoked as a flight from the cross. A
sterile salvation, deprived of life, already dead in itself. Jesus is nailed to
the cross, this criminal is hung on the cross. Jesus has become one same thing
with the wood, because the cross is for Him the scroll of the book which
unfolds to narrate the wonders of the divine life which is surrendered, given
without any conditions. The other one is hung as a fruit, rotten by evil and
ready to be thrown away.
•
v. 40. But the other spoke up and rebuked him:
“Have you no fear of God at all? You got the same sentence as He did.” The
other one, being close to Jesus, acquires again the holy fear and makes a
judgment. Can the one who lives next to Jesus reproach one who is there, two
steps away from life and does not see it, and continues to waste it to the end?
Everything has a limit, and in this case the limit is not fixed by Christ who
is there, but by His companion. Christ does not respond; the other one responds
in His place, recognizing his responsibility and helping the other one to read
the present moment as an opportunity for salvation.
•
v. 41. “In our case, we deserve it. We are
paying for what we did. But this man has done nothing wrong”. Evil leads to the
cross, the serpent had guided to the forbidden fruit hanging on the tree. But
which cross: the cross of one’s own “reward” or the cross of the good fruit?
Christ is the fruit which every man or woman can get from the tree of life,
which is in the middle of the garden of the world, the just one who has never
done any evil except love until ad finem.
•
v. 42. And then he said: “Jesus, remember me
when You come into Your kingdom”. It is a life which is fulfilled and is
enclosed in an invocation incredibly dense in significance. A man, a sinner,
conscious of his own sin and of the just condemnation, accepts the mystery of
the cross. At the feet of that throne of glory he asks to be remembered in the
Kingdom of Christ. He sees an innocent who is crucified and he recognizes and
sees beyond what appears exteriorly, the life of the eternal Kingdom. What an
acknowledgement! The eyes of the one who has known, in one instant, to get the
life which was passing by and which was proclaiming a message of salvation even
if in a shocking way. That culprit, criminal deserving death, insulted and
ridiculed by all those who had had the possibility of knowing Him closely and
for a long time, receives His first subject, the first one He wins over. The
scripture says, damned is the one hanging on the wood. The damned innocent
becomes blessing for the one who deserved condemnation. A political and earthly
tribunal, that of Pilate, a divine tribunal, that of the cross, where the one
condemned is saved in virtue of the consuming love of the innocent Lamb.
•
v. 43. He answered him: “In truth I tell you,
today you will be with Me in paradise”. Today: the only word which bursts into
the new life of the Gospel. Salvation has been accomplished; it is no longer
necessary to wait for any Messiah to save the people from their sins. Today,
salvation is here, on the cross. Christ does not enter into His Kingdom alone.
He takes with Him the first one who has been saved: the same humanity, the same
judgment, the same luck, the same victory. Jesus is not jealous of His filial
prerogatives, immediately He has pulled away from the distance separating Him
from the Father and from the death which could not escape nor had a way out.
Wonderful the kingdom which was inaugurated on Golgotha. Someone has said that
the good thief committed the last robbery of his life; he robbed salvation. And
so it is, for those who move with the things of God! How much truth, instead,
in contemplating the gift which Christ gives to His companion of the cross. No
robbery, no theft! All is a gift: the presence of God is not bargained or
traded! Faith is what opens the door of the Kingdom to the good thief. Good
because he knew how to name justly what his existence had been and saw the
Savior in Christ. Was the other one evil? Neither more nor less than the other
one perhaps, but he remained beyond faith: he was looking for the strong and
powerful God, the powerful God in battle, a God who places things in their place
and he did not know how to recognize him in the eyes of Christ, he stopped at
his powerlessness.
c) Reflection
Christ dies on the Cross. He is not alone. He is surrounded
by the people, by the strangest persons, the hostile ones who throw on Him
their responsibility of lack of understanding, the indifferent ones who do not
get involved except for personal interest, those who do not understand as yet
but who, perhaps, are better disposed to allow themselves to be questioned,
since they think they have nothing to lose, like one of the two criminals. If
death is to fall into nothingness, then human time becomes anguish. If,
instead, it is to wait for the light, then human time becomes hope, and the
space of the finite opens a passage to tomorrow, to the new dawn of the
Resurrection. I am the way, the truth and the life. How true are these words,
the words of Jesus, words which enlighten the darkness of death. The way does
not stop, the truth is not turned off. Life does not die. In those words “I AM”
is enclosed the royalty of Christ. We journey toward a goal, and to attain it
cannot mean to lose it… I am the way… We live from truth, and truth is not an
object, but something which exists: “Truth is the splendor of reality – says
Simon Weil – and to desire truth is to desire a direct contact with reality in
order to love it”. “I am the truth… Nobody wants to die, we feel deprived of
something which belongs to us: life, and then, if life does not form part of
us, it can not hold us to itself… I am the life… Jesus has said it: “He who
wants to save his life, will lose it, but the one who loses his life for Me,
will find it”. Is there some contradiction in the terms or rather secrets
hidden to be revealed? Do we remove the veil from what we see in order to enjoy
what we do not see? Christ on the cross is the object of everybody’s attention.
Many think of Him or are even at His side. But this is not sufficient. The
closeness which saves is not that of those who are there to deride or to mock.
The closeness which saves is that of the one who humbly asks to be remembered
not in the fleeing time but in the eternal Kingdom.
3. Oratio
Psalm 145
I shall praise You to the heights,
God my King, I shall bless Your name for ever and ever.
Day after day I shall bless You,
I shall praise Your name for ever and ever.
Great is Yahweh and worthy of all praise, his greatness
beyond all reckoning.
Each age will praise Your deeds
to the next, proclaiming Your mighty works. Your renown is the splendor of Your
glory, I will ponder the story of Your wonders.
They will speak of Your awesome
power, and I shall recount Your greatness. They will bring out the memory of
Your great generosity, and joyfully acclaim Your saving justice.
Yahweh is tenderness and pity, slow to anger, full of
faithful love.
Yahweh is generous to all.
His tenderness embraces all His
creatures. All Your creatures shall thank You, Yahweh, and Your faithful shall
bless You.
They shall speak of the glory of
Your kingship and tell of Your might, making known Your mighty deeds to the
children of Adam, the glory and majesty of Your kingship.
Your kingship is a kingship forever, Your reign lasts from
age to age.
Yahweh is trustworthy in all His words, and upright in all
His deeds.
Yahweh supports all who stumble, lifts up those who are
bowed down.
All look to You in hope
and You feed them with the food of the season.
And, with generous hand,
You satisfy the desires of every
living creature. Upright in all that He does, Yahweh acts only in faithful
love.
He is close to all who call upon Him, all who call on Him
from the heart.
He fulfills the desires of all who fear Him, He hears their
cry and He saves them.
Yahweh guards all who
love Him, but all the wicked He destroys. My mouth shall always praise Yahweh,
let every creature bless His holy name for ever and ever.
4. Contemplatio
Lord, it sounds strange to call You King. One does not get
close to a King easily. And, instead, today I find You sitting beside me, in
the ditch of sin, here, where I would never have thought to find You. Kings are
in palaces, far from the difficulties of the poor people. You, instead, live
Your Lordship wearing the worn out clothes of our poverty. What a great feast
for me to see You here where I went to hide myself so as not to feel the
indiscreet looks of human judgment. On the edge of my failures, whom have I
found if not You? The only one who could reproach me for my incoherence comes
to look for me to sustain me in my anguish and in my humiliation! What great
illusion when we think that we should come to You only when we have attained
perfection… I would want to think that You do not like what I am, but perhaps,
it is not exactly like that: I do not like what I am, but for You, I am all
right, because Your love is something special which respects everything in me
and makes of every instant of my life a space of encounter and of gift. Lord,
teach me not to get down from the cross with the absurd pretension of saving
myself! Grant that I may know how to wait, at Your side, the TODAY of Your
Kingdom in my life.
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