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Saint Gertrude Parish - Lasne
Year B
On this page you will find:
The readings from the Mass
The Mass leaflet with the choice of hymns
A sample universal prayer available for download
In PDF format
In editable Word format
A meditation on the Sunday Gospel
A commentary to better understand the Gospel
A word for the road
November 24, 2024
Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
World Youth Day
To the One who loves us,
who has delivered us from our sins by his blood,
who made us a kingdom
and priests for his God and Father,
To Him be the glory and sovereignty
For ever and ever. Amen.
Behold, he comes with the clouds,
Every eye will see it.
Those who pierced him will see it;
and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him.
Revelation 1:5-7
Readings from the Mass
Lectio Divina
Mass leaflet
Universal Prayer
Meditation
On this last Sunday of the liturgical year, we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King. And today's Gospel invites us to contemplate Jesus as he presents himself to Pilate as king of a kingdom that "is not of this world" (Jn 18:36). This does not mean that Christ is the king of another world, but that he is king in a different way, even though he is king in this world. It is a contrast between two logics. Worldly logic is based on ambition and competition; it fights with the weapons of fear, blackmail, and the manipulation of consciences. The logic of the Gospel, that is, the logic of Jesus, is expressed, on the contrary, in humility and selflessness; it affirms itself silently but concretely with the force of truth. The kingdoms of this world are sometimes founded on abuses of power, rivalries, and oppression; The kingdom of Christ is a "kingdom of justice, love and peace" (Preface).
When did Jesus reveal himself as king? In the event of the Cross! Anyone who looks at the Cross of Christ cannot fail to see the astonishing gratuitousness of love. Some of you may say, “But, Father, it was a failure!” It is precisely in the failure of sin—sin is a failure—in the failure of human ambitions, that the triumph of the Cross, the gratuitousness of love, resides. In the failure of the Cross, we see love, this freely given love, that Jesus gives us. For Christians, speaking of power and strength means referring to the power of the Cross and the strength of Jesus’ love: a love that remains steadfast and unwavering, even in the face of rejection, and that appears as the fulfillment of a life spent in the total gift of self for humanity. On Calvary, passersby and leaders mock Jesus nailed to the cross and challenge him: “Save yourself by coming down from the cross!” “Save yourself!” (Mark 15:30). But paradoxically, Jesus’ truth is precisely the one his adversaries hurl at him in mockery: “He cannot save himself!” (v. 31). If Jesus had come down from the cross, he would have yielded to the temptation of the principle of this world; on the contrary, he cannot save himself precisely so that he can save others, precisely because he gave his life for us, for each one of us. To say, “Jesus gave his life for the world” is true, but it is better to say, “Jesus gave his life for me.” And today in the marketplace, let each of you say in your heart, “He gave his life for me,” so that he could save each of us from our sins.
And who understood this? One of the two criminals crucified with Him, known as the "good thief," who begged Him: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (Lk 23:42). But he was a criminal, he was corrupt, and he was condemned to death precisely for all the brutalities he had committed in his life. But he saw love in Jesus' behavior, in Jesus' gentleness. And this is the strength of Christ: it is love. This is why the kingship of Jesus does not oppress us, but liberates us from our weaknesses and poverty, encouraging us to walk the paths of goodness, reconciliation, and forgiveness. Let us look at the Cross of Jesus, let us look at the good thief, and let us all say together what the good thief said: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Ask Jesus, when we see ourselves as weak, sinful, defeated, to look at us and say: "You are here. Do not forget me!"
Faced with so much division in the world and the many wounds in the flesh of men, let us ask the Virgin Mary to support us in our commitment to imitate Jesus, our king, by making his kingdom present through gestures of tenderness, understanding and mercy.
POPE FRANCIS
ANGELUS
Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Better understanding the Gospel
with Marie-Noëlle Thabut
THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN
This is quite a surprising text for the Feast of Christ the King! The Gospels contain very few affirmations of Christ's kingship! We must look here, in the account of Jesus' Passion, for his clear self-affirmation of his kingship. One might wonder why Jesus didn't declare himself king sooner. Every time people tried to make him king, he shrank back. Every time they tried to publicize him, after particularly impressive miracles, he gave very strict instructions to remain silent. The same thing happened after the Transfiguration. And now, while he is chained, poor, and condemned, he acknowledges himself as king! That is to say, at the very moment when he truly doesn't appear to be one... at least not from a human perspective.
This may mean... It surely means that we need to revise our understanding of kingship: let us remember what he said to his disciples: “Those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45).
What John wants to tell us, when he recounts Jesus' interrogation by Pilate, is that Jesus is the king of humanity at the very moment he gives his life for it. This king has no other ambition than service. Moreover, this confrontation between the representative of the vast Roman Empire and a condemned man, one of hundreds, becomes a "dialogue"; for it truly is a world turned upside down: throughout the Passion, John deliberately emphasizes the reversal of the situation; here, it is the Roman power that will recognize that the true king is Jesus Christ: when Pilate says to Jesus, "So, you are a king?", Jesus replies, "You say that I am a king" ("su legeis"), meaning "you have understood everything, you say it yourself."
But this kingdom has nothing to do with our earthly kingdoms, defended by guards: “If my kingdom were of this world, I would have guards who would have fought to prevent my arrest by the Jews.” His kingdom is that of truth: no defense other than the truth. “For this I was born, for this I came into the world: to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” In the second reading for this Sunday, taken from the Book of Revelation, we heard John say that Jesus is the “faithful witness.” He is the “only begotten Son, full of grace and truth,” whom the Prologue of his Gospel already announced to us.
Pilate, who lives in the Greco-Roman world, can only ask the question, "What is truth?" The Jews, however, have known since the beginning of their Covenant with God that truth is God himself.
CHOOSING TO BELONG TO THE TRUTH
The word "truth" in the biblical sense means "solid faithfulness" of God; in Hebrew, it is from the same root as the word "AMEN" which means firm, stable, faithful, true (we saw this in Psalm 92/93 of this feast).
Precisely because Truth is a Person, God himself, no one can claim to possess the truth! We belong to the truth, it does not belong to us; how many useless quarrels, and even deadly wars, we could have avoided and could still avoid if we had never lost sight of the fact that we do not possess the truth!... The only important thing is to listen and allow ourselves to be instructed by it.
“Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice,” Jesus affirms to Pilate, just as he had said earlier to the Jews: “Whoever belongs to God listens to God’s words; and it is because you do not belong to God that you do not listen to me” (John 8:47). Only God can tell us “Listen.” Every day Jesus and his disciples repeated the Jewish profession of faith taught by the Torah: “Shema Yisrael” (“Hear, O Israel!”); this word in the mouth of Jesus is therefore another way of revealing himself as God. (At the Baptism and the Transfiguration, the voice from heaven saying about Jesus, “Listen to him,” also says that he is God.) Pilate may not have perceived all these resonances, but when John recounts all this to the first Christians, they know how to read between the lines.
Pilate remained with his question and, clearly, missed his chance to discover God: he reasoned about the truth instead of surrendering to it and simply believing. The entire Gospel of John describes the dilemma that confronts every person: "to believe or not to believe." Martha of Bethany made the right choice, that of humility and trust: "I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who was to come into the world." Why did Martha, the obscure woman from Judea, have access to this truth? And why not Pilate? Yet he was not far from it: since Jesus pointed out to him that he was almost there: "You yourself acknowledge that I am a king" (v. 37). What, then, was Pilate lacking?
Perhaps it means accepting not to seek to possess the truth, but to be embraced by it, to belong to it. Apparently, this is the only thing required of us to participate in the kingship of Christ: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven!” In other words, the poor in spirit are the true kings, beginning with Jesus himself.
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