Jesus Christ - King of the Universe

“Worthy is the Lamb ”

Homily for Solemn First Vespers of the Solemnity of Jesus Christ King of the Universe

In the proper Preface at Mass for the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe – a Preface we pray usually just once a year on today’s Feast – it says: ...and making all created things subject to His rule, [Christ] might present to the immensity of Your majesty an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.

Truth and life and holiness and grace and justice and love and peace. Seven qualities or characteristics of the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that got me to thinking, thinking about the verses from the Book of Revelation which we all just prayed in the New Testament canticle, which you and I pray every week, if not more often. You made of them a kingdom, and priests to serve our God, and they shall reign on the earth. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory and praise. Power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise. Seven things that you and I owe to the Lamb who was once slain and who is now seated at the right hand of God, you and I who have been brought into His Kingdom.

And numbers of things in the Book of Revelation are not random; they have significance, they have meaning; and of course, the number seven is the number of perfection, of fullness, of completion, because God rested on the seventh day after creating the universe in six days. The seventh day is the sabbath, the day of rest, the day of fulfillment, the day of attaining the promises God has made.

So, that eternal and universal kingdom that Christ came to usher in, over which He now rules, is marked out by truth and life and holiness and grace and justice and love and peace. We could just as easily say that where truth and life and holiness and grace and justice and love and peace are found, then truly the Kingdom is among us, even in the midst of a world so often characterized rather by falsehood and death and evil and malevolence and injustice and hatred and strife.

Our late Holy Father, Pope Benedict, in an Angelus address on the Solemnity of Christ the King, once said: “In fact, the Kingdom of Christ is not of this world, but it brings to fulfilment all the good that, thank God, exists in man and in history. If we put love for our neighbor into practice in accordance with the Gospel message, we make room for God's dominion and his Kingdom is actualized among us. If, instead, each one thinks only of his or her own interests, the world can only go to ruin.”

So, on this Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, we should lift up our hearts and our voices to the Lamb and offer Him power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory and praise for having called us into His Kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.

“Where truth and life and holiness and grace and justice and love and peace are found, then truly the Kingdom is among us”