Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ the King (Mt 25:31-46)
St. Martin of Tours was a Bishop in the fourth century. Born to a senior officer in the Roman army, he was required to join the army at the age of fifteen. One day, while he was serving in the army, as he was approaching the gates of the city of Amiens he met a barely clothed man begging for alms in the freezing cold. He immediately stopped and impulsively cut his military cloak in half and shared it with the beggar. That night Martin dreamed of Jesus wearing the half-cloak he had given away and he heard Jesus say to the angels: “Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is not baptized; he gave it me.” Martin’s disciple and biographer Sulpicius Severus states that as a consequence of this vision Martin “flew to be baptized.”
Christ The King
If we are asked to describe our faith what immediately comes to mind are such things as the creed, church doctrine and dogma, morality, family and community, and our personal relationship with God. And while these are all essential elements of faith, they are in many ways, focused only on the letter of the law, much like the Pharisees, and miss the most important criteria for true discipleship.
Jesus constantly and insistently commands us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the poor, welcome the stranger, care for the sick, and visit those who are in prison. The importance that Jesus places on caring for the poor and marginalized can be measured by the fact that every tenth line in the New Testament is a direct challenge to care for the poor. It should be abundantly clear that Jesus considers acts of mercy and compassion for the poor as important, perhaps more so, than any creed, dogma, or doctrine.
He tells us that when the Son of Man comes he will judge us by whether we served the least of his brothers and sisters; He calls us to love one another, to see Christ in each other, to encounter Christ in everyone we meet.
A portion of a poem attributed to Saint Patrick of Ireland called the Lorica, or Breastplate, conveys the closeness that Christ is to each of us:
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise…
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye of every one who sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
Each of us is the body of Christ—so remember whenever you encounter:
someone who is hungry and you give them food,
someone who is thirsty, and you give them drink,
a stranger and you welcome them,
someone who is naked and you clothe them,
someone who is sick and you care for them,
someone who is in prison and you visit them
that you are doing it to one of the least and to Christ himself; and for this you will inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
