KING OF THE UNIVERSE

Sunday, November 21, 2021, is the Solemnity of "Jesus Christ, King of the Universe." This year I'm looking at this feast from a different perspective, that of Richard Rohr's "Universal Christ." If you look at the list of labels to the left of this post and you'll see several recent posts concerning the "Universal Christ."

We relate easily and willingly to "Jesus," our human brother who was born, loved, suffered and died as a human being. You could say that in many ways we have reduced Jesus to a very manageable figure, someone who lived 2,000 years ago but who is still present in Spirit today. We can understand this familiar figure called "Jesus."

But when it comes to this title "Christ," most of us draw a blank. Bypassing the historical reasons for this unfortunate state of affairs, let me suggest a few ideas about this Christ. By contrast with "baby Jesus" lying on the straw, "Christ" is the Second Person of the Trinity who is coeternal with the Father, who was present at the beginning and participated in the creation of the world. The Gospel of John begins not with Luke's account of  tiny baby Jesus being born in a stable, but rather with a sweeping vision of Christ as the "Word:" "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... Through Him was made everything that was made..."  (Jn 1:1f)

There is a 58-minute video of a lecture by Richard Rohr in which he sets out the basic lines of the idea behind the title "Christ." and of his book "The Universal Christ."

You can see, too, in recent posts, that I've been influenced by Teilhard de Chardin's vision of the

universe, especially his unique way of experiencing the Eucharist as a divine power extending to the farthest reaches of creation.

So as we celebrate this year's feast of Christ as "King" I sense a sort of contradiction -- Christ as the Universal and Infinite Creative Word of God is being given a crown, a sign of earthly power. Referring to him as a "king" sounds like quite a demotion, reducing him to a human category that we can understand perfectly well on our own terms. But I'm starting to sound like a curmudgeon. Sorry!

Let me just say that I plan to celebrate this year's feast in part by looking at some YouTube videos about the farthest reaches of the universe and seeing there the unseen power and presence of "Christ, King of the Universe."(Here's a favorite video of mine from the Hubble telescope, it's only a few minutes long.)

Happy feast of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe!