Today, the 34th Sunday in Ordinary Time, ends the Church’s liturgical year, so the readings describe the enthronement of the victorious Christ as King in Heaven in Glory. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Pope Pius XI’s 1925 institution of today’s Feast of Christ the King with the proclamation, “Pax Christi in regno Christi” (the peace of Christ in the reign of Christ).

This means that we live in the peace of Christ when we surrender our lives to Him every day, accept Him as our God, Savior, and King, and allow Him to rule our lives.

The title “Christ the King” has its roots both in Scripture and in the whole theology of the Kingdom of God. In most of the Messianic prophecies given in the Old Testament books of Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel, Christ the Messiah is represented as a King.

If you would notice, the Kingdom of God is the center of Jesus’ teaching and the phrase “Kingdom of God” occurs in the Gospels 122 times, of which 90 instances are used by Jesus.

We need to accept Christ the King as our Lord, King, and Savior, and surrender our lives to Him.

We surrender our lives to Jesus every day when we give priority to His teaching in our daily choices, especially in moral decisions. We should not exclude Christ our King from any area of our personal or family lives. In other words, Christ must be in full charge of our lives, and we must give Him sovereign power over our bodies, our thoughts, our hearts, and our free will.

We need to be serving disciples of a Servant King. Jesus declared that He came not to be served but to serve and showed us the spirit of service by washing the feet of His disciples. We become Jesus’s followers when we recognize His presence in everyone, especially the poor, the sick, the outcast, and the marginalized in society and render humble and loving service to Jesus in each of them.

We need to accept Jesus Christ as the King of love. Jesus came to proclaim to all of us the Good News of God’s love and salvation, giving us His new commandment of love: “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12), and demonstrated that love by dying for us sinners. We accept Jesus as our King of love when we love others as Jesus loves us.

I love you all very dearly, cross my heart!