25 November 1990
Santurce, Puerto Rico

My dear People,

First, let me say how happy I am to be celebrating Mass with you this morning. Every Sunday of the year is like a little Easter day, for on Sundays we rejoice in a special way as we reflect on the great truth that not only did Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, die, but on the third day after His death He rose again. In rising from the dead Jesus Christ has given us all hope and a reason to be joyful, for we know that it is His wish and desire that we share with Him the joy of surmounting the unpleasant experience of death.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ was a triumph. Today's feast also suggests triumph, for we are celebrating the feast of Jesus Christ, Universal King. Jesus Christ is King, but He is a very special sort of King. When Jesus Christ was born, He did not look like a King and He looked even less like one when He died. Kings are not born in stables and they do not die writhing in pain on a cross at the outskirts of a city. There were some hints, when He was born, that He was a King. Wise men came from far away, looking for Him Whom they said was born "King of the Jews." So, too, when He was dying, there was written over His head the words, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." (Jn 19:19). These were only hints and the last one was not intended to be really serious. But we know that Jesus Christ was and is a King.

Today in the world we do not have as many kings as we had at one time. Sometimes governments will give prizes or awards or decorations to people who during a year have distinguished themselves by a work for peace or their devotion to others or outstanding services they have rendered to the State. For a while people will talk about these people, but then they are forgotten. That is not so with Jesus Christ, Who is the Universal King. Since He rose from the dead, there has never been a day in the history of humanity when His name and His memory were not on people's minds, on their lips and in their hearts. So it will be until the end of time. Today we are reminding ourselves that it was "through Him all things were made and without Him was made nothing that was made." (Jn 1:3). We are reminding ourselves that in Jesus Christ made man, we find all that we admire, all that we love, all that attracts us in the individual people whom we meet and love. It is because, not only all things were made through Him, but because all things were made for Him, that we salute Him as Christ, the Universal King. We salute Him as King, too, because He has bought us with the price of His Blood. (cf. 1 Pt 1:19).

We are citizens of His kingdom because He had made us so through Baptism. He makes us guests at His royal table every time He feeds us with His own Body and Blood in Holy Communion. He gives us a royal pardon every time we approach Him in the Sacrament of Penance, after we have said and done things that are unworthy of one who is a citizen of His kingdom. He has honored us by asking us for our cooperation in establishing in this world "a kingdom of justice, of love and of peace." (Preface). He has also invited us to share with Him finally the dominion which He has over all things.

Kings today are surrounded with security. They have around-the-clock bodyguards. Jesus Christ does not need that sort of security, for He has risen and death cannot touch Him any more. What He does ask of us, citizens of His kingdom, is not so much to guard His Person, but to guard what He said and what He did. He wants us to keep that secure for Him until He comes again in glory. That is what loyalty to Jesus Christ, Universal King, means. It is very easy for us to sing hymns in honor of Christ, our King. When He was on earth, people did so, too, but one day He quoted from the Old Testament the words: "This people honors Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me." (Mt 15:8). Perhaps there are times when He feels just like that about us. This man, this woman, honors Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Devotion to Christ the King means loving those people whom, when He was a king on earth, He liked to have close about Him--the poor. Devotion to Christ the King means loving and being servants of the poor in the way and in the spirit with which He served them when He was on earth. Devotion to Christ the King means opposing and rejecting violence in all its forms. Devotion to Christ the King means working for peace and reconciliation in our society, for His kingdom is one of love and justice and peace.