Given all the war, famine, drought, and persecution going on in the world today, have you ever wondered where God is in the midst of it all? Do you question God about suffering and injustice? The children of Israel did throughout their forty-year sojourn through the desert. King David did in the Psalms. The prophets Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, and Habakkuk did as well. There is a long history of people questioning God in the midst of suffering. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that “The world we live in often seems very far from the one promised us by faith. Our experiences of evil and suffering, injustice and death, seem to contradict the Good News; they can shake our faith and become a temptation against it” (CCC 164).
According to the Catechism, rather than become overwhelmed by the seemingly hopelessness of it all, we “must turn to the witnesses of faith: to Abraham who ‘in hope …believed against hope.’ to the Virgin Mary, who in ‘her pilgrimage of faith,’ walked into the ‘night of faith’ in sharing the darkness of her son’s suffering and death; and to so many others …”(CCC 165). Our greatest “witness of faith” is Jesus Christ who by his own very human suffering gave us “redemption. The forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:14).
Today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King. It is fitting that our Gospel for the day does not present us with a triumphant King. Rather we are confronted with the image of Jesus hanging on the cross jeered and mocked by the crowd and by a criminal who was crucified with him. This is not the portrait of a regal leader. It is the portrait of a suffering human being. Christ, our Universal King, is our king because he was willing to suffer as we do. He joined us in death so that we could join him in Paradise.
In today’s second reading, St. Paul reminded the Colossians, and he reminds us, that, “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” (Col 1:18-20).
This brings me back to the question “where is God”? The suffering Jesus hanging on the cross is right here with the suffering people of the world suffering with them. The loving and compassionate God also is here working through people who are helping their neighbours who may be in need. The merciful God is in all of us from every corner of the world as we respond generously to the needs of our brothers and sisters. As long as there are people who respond to others with justice, compassion, mercy, and love, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Universal King, is with us. He is welcoming us into his Kingdom just as he welcomed the second criminal crucified with him, the first citizen of Christ’s Kingdom.
You have rescued us, O God,
from the powers of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of your beloved Son,
that we might share the justice and love of Christ's reign.
Grant that we may walk in the footsteps of Jesus,
the path of obedient faith and self-sacrificing love,
laying down our lives, as he did,
for our brothers and sisters,
in the sure and certain hope
that Jesus will remember us
when he comes into his kingdom
and share with us the glory of Paradise.
We ask this through the Christ
who was, who is and who is to come,
your Son who lives with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.
from the powers of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of your beloved Son,
that we might share the justice and love of Christ's reign.
Grant that we may walk in the footsteps of Jesus,
the path of obedient faith and self-sacrificing love,
laying down our lives, as he did,
for our brothers and sisters,
in the sure and certain hope
that Jesus will remember us
when he comes into his kingdom
and share with us the glory of Paradise.
We ask this through the Christ
who was, who is and who is to come,
your Son who lives with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.
Amen
