Christ The King Sunday: Viva! Cristo Rey!

Today’s Gospel reading should be taken by all Christians as a warning of things to happen to you on Judgment Day. That of course depends if you went astray, even if you believed that you already know the heart of our Lord Jesus Christ and accept his teachings, but was lured by false prophets who preach in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the Judgment of Nations when Jesus Christ will come as our King. This is why today we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King or Cristo Rey and you will find this in your Bibles in Matthew 25: 31-46.

“Jesus said to his disciples: “when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, 32 and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you are the blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’

37 Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ 40 And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ 41 Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire-prepared for the devil and his angels.

42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ 44 Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs? 45 he will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ 46 And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

While we are taught not to judge others, however I’m sure the first amongst the goats are Atheists, those who do not believe in God or his only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. These are the people who do not even believe that there is such a placed called Purgatory or Hell! Most of them scoff at people who preach the Word of God, saying that they would deal with the afterlife when they get there. But that would be too late isn’t it?

To those unbelievers, let me point out that life eternal has two faces. Hell is a permanent residence for souls, which there can be no comparison especially from those who say that their life here on earth is hell. When you are there, there is no turning back. It is an eternal prison of torment and suffering that no one can escape from. As Abraham with the poor man Lazarus on his side told the rich man who was languishing in hell, “Even if we took pity on you and wanted to help you, there is a wide chasm between us that no one can cross.”

On the other side, heaven must be a place of perfection that nothing could compare it from any great place here on earth. This is why when you’re in heaven; there is no point in returning back to earth. Only the Son of Man, who came from above, came down to earth and returned. And as we know, he will come again to judge the living and the dead, but we do not know the date or hour when this would happen.

You can say that this is an “End Time” scripture reading, which gives us an insight of how things would go during Judgment Day. If you read this passage very carefully, you will see how simple our Lord Judges us. He merely divides the sheep from the goats and tells the sheep why they will be rewarded with eternal life and to the goats, why they will suffer eternal damnation. But while the Lord showed us his “crystal ball” so we could have a peek into the future… the bottom line is really about our faith. Like the goats in this story, you can also ask the Lord, “When did we see you naked, hungry, ill or in prison? But then again if you are the one asking God sitting on his throne, then you must know that it is already too late in the hour!

We’ve written already about how we can attain eternal life and surely by now you have already decided to prepare yourself for the after life? I’m sure that most of us are still too engrossed about earthly things to bother about a future that we really know nothing about except from what our Lord Jesus Christ has taught us. So while it’s not too late, repent and go to confession and receive Jesus in Holy Communion… that will certainly please God.

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