Mission Report – November 23, 2017

One of my favourite books to read during a quiet moment is a one volume dictionary of British history. This little gem contains precise and concise entries from The Treaty of Aachen to the Zulu people. The entries on the kings and queens makes for interesting reading. History has passed the whole range verdicts on these leaders as our students learn in their history classes. Some made great gains in kingdoms, others lost everything, others were crowned younger than our Year 7 students.

This Sunday we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King. This great celebration is the liturgical link between what the Church calls Ordinary Time and the Season of Advent. Advent is our annual time of preparation for the great joy of Christmas.

The use of the earthly title of kingship compels us to make comparisons with those who have also claimed the title. Historical notions of royalty have always implied that one group of people is more revered than others because of their birth. This is captured by the witticism of Oscar Wilde who once boasted that he could make a pun on any subject. When dared to make one about The Queen, he replied that the Queen is not a subject. Boom boom!

But let us compare such notions to that conveyed in Sunday’s Gospel.

-I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.-

In the kingdom of Jesus what is most important is the way we treat the least of our sisters and brothers, not giving accolades to the -‘great and mighty’. What we do for the poor, the hungry, the ill and the prisoner, we do for Christ, and so unite all acts of love to the great love of God -“ the love that is the source and purpose of all things.

God is love. This is the link between proclaiming Christ the King, the baby in the manger, the suffering of Jesus on the Cross and the Resurrection. This motivates everything that we do at St Patrick’s College.