DAILY SCRIPTURES
Reflection on the DAILY SCRIPTURES can be found at the following links:
SUNDAY SCRIPTURES
Reflect on the Sunday Scriptures with:
GOSPEL AND REFLECTION
Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe Year B
First Reading – Daniel 7:13-14
His sovereignty is eternal.
I gazed into the visions of the night.
And I saw, coming on the clouds of heaven,
one like a son of man.
He came to the one of great age
and was led into his presence.
On him was conferred sovereignty,
glory and kingship,
and men of all peoples, nations and languages became his servants.
His sovereignty is an eternal sovereignty
which shall never pass away,
nor will his empire be destroyed.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 92:1-2. 5. R.v.1
(R.) The Lord is king;
he is robed in majesty.
Second Reading – Revelation 1:5-8
The ruler of the kings of the earth … made us a line of kings, priests to serve his God.
Jesus Christ is the faithful witness, the First-born from the dead, the Ruler of the kings of the earth. He loves us and has washed away our sins with his blood, and made us a line of kings, priests to serve his God and Father; to him, then, be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen. It is he who is coming on the clouds; everyone will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the races of the earth will mourn over him. This is the truth. Amen. ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ says the Lord God, who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.
Gospel Acclamation
Mark 11:9, 10
Alleluia, alleluia!
Blessed is he who inherits the kingdom of David our Father;
blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Alleluia!
Gospel – John 18:33-37
You say that I am a king.
‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ Pilate asked. Jesus replied, ‘Do you ask this of your own accord, or have others spoken to you about me?’ Pilate answered, ‘Am I a Jew? It is your own people and the chief priests who have handed you over to me: what have you done?’ Jesus replied, ‘Mine is not a kingdom of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, my men would have fought to prevent my being surrendered to the Jews. But my kingdom is not of this kind.’ ‘So you are a king then?’ said Pilate. ‘It is you who say it’ answered Jesus. ‘Yes, I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.’
Gospel Reflection
To Rule as God Rules and not as Rome Ruled
Reflection on the Gospel-Solemnity of Christ the King, Year B
(John 18:33-37))
The liturgical year always ends with the celebration of Christ’s reign. The gospel reading for this year is from John’s gospel where the notion of God’s kin-dom or reign or empire is mentioned only twice in contrast with its frequent appearance in the other gospels, especially Matthew. For readers in countries where democratic rule is valued and promoted, the whole notion of kingship or monarchy poses some difficulty. It is important to put the exchange between Jesus and Pilate into the political context of Roman occupied Judaea of the first century.
Rome was the dominant global force at that time. It had the economic and military strength to maintain its power over the whole Mediterranean world. When Jesus tells Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world, he is not pitting planet Earth or the cosmos over against a purely spiritual world. He is referring rather to the world and values of the Roman Empire and the destructive values that are sometimes espoused by his followers. Jesus’ way of being in the world stands in stark contrast with the expansionist and frequently destructive ways of Roman rule. The term “world” is used in two different senses in John’s gospel. It is used both literally and metaphorically. On the one hand, it is the world that came into being through the Word (1:10), the beautiful cosmos or world that “God so loved” (3:16). On the other hand, it is a “world” that rejected the light (1:10-11), a sinful world in need of God’s saving power (3:17).
Jesus does not claim the sort of over-bearing political, military or economic power that Pilate exercises on behalf of the Roman emperor. His authority has nothing to do with power over or domination of others. It is grounded in truth (1:17) or, in other words, in the revelation of God. Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life” (14:6) and his mission is to testify to the truth. The path to freedom and life lies in acceptance of the truth (8:32): “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Truth is not a given: it must be sought in prayerful dialogue, in listening to earth’s distress and in openness to the Spirit of God.
To celebrate this feast is to move in the direction of peaceful solutions to the conflicts in our world and away from the paths of violence, domination and imperial expansionism. It is to seek the truth in dialogue and to respond to the plight of those who suffer the pain of hunger, of persecution and of loss. It is to rule as God rules and not as Rome ruled. It is to look again at how we inhabit our world and to change our ways for the sake of truth and life, the present and future life of our beleaguered planet.
Sr Veronica Lawson rsm
© The scriptural quotations are taken from the Jerusalem Bible, published and copyright 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton Longman and Todd Ltd and Doubleday & Co Inc, and used by permission of the publishers. The English translation of the Psalm Responses, the Alleluia and Gospel Verses, and the Lenten Gospel Acclamations, and the Titles, Summaries, and Conclusion of the Readings, from the Lectionary for Mass © 1997, 1981, 1968, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved.