We are somewhat embarrassed to celebrate the solemnity of Christ, king of the universe, since we are tempted to project the logic of human royalty into it. This problem was perceived, even more acutely, at the time when Jesus lived and the writings about him were born, since then we had to deal with an exercise of royalty even more despotic and absolute than the one we know today. We then understand that the image of the ‘king’, or of the ‘kingdom’ of God, has a polemical vein, they lead us to a critical discernment on how royalty is exercised in history. Jesus is king not like the rulers of this world. To Pilate he declares that he reveals himself as a king who bears witness to the truth. “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (18:37). This voice is the silence of his passion, it is the even more secret silence of his resurrection, which transforms us by making us reborn. Here is the kingship of Jesus, silent but vital, which we must contemplate in order to allow ourselves to be regenerated by it. Not as subjects, but in the freedom of the children of God, who know they are loved by the one who freed them with the gift of his own life. A king upside down: the rulers of the earth subject the lives of others to themselves; Jesus hands over his own life to others, even to his blood, to make us joint heirs in the kingdom with him, that is, partakers of eternal life.

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey