This Sunday we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King that marks the end of another liturgical year. This brings us into understanding that the liturgical year is different from the way it operates with our civil calendar. If our civil calendar ends with December 31st and begins with January 1st, our liturgical year always ends with the last Sunday of November, when the Solemnity of Christ the King is celebrated. Then the following week, with the season of Advent, marks the beginning of the liturgical year.
No doubt that as we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King, we have our gospel that speaks of end time when Our Lord will be seated upon his glorious throne and all the nations will be assembled before him. According to the gospel, He will judge like a shepherd who separates the sheep from the goats. Just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats at the end of the day, Christ, as a shepherd and king, will also separate the good from the bad at the end of time. The sheep are the good people who gave food to the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked and visited the sick and the imprisoned. On the other hand, the goats are those people who have failed to perform these good deeds. In surprise, Christ would reveal his presence in the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick and those imprisoned.
How will God judge us? Certainly not by the standard of the world. The way of the world is success, which is measured by wealth and power in the glorification of the ego. We can call it the “way of the goat”! On the other hand, “the way of the sheep” is going out of the self in serving the poorest of God who are the unwanted, the marginalized, the oppressed and the poor. Jesus incarnates himself again through them in the most unexpected ways.
At the end, we will be judged, not by our faith, but how we are able to translate that faith into concrete acts of good works in fostering the dignity of those who may not even look like Christ. Our love of God should find its channel through practical acts of charity done to the least, the last and the lowest. Then we will hear God telling us “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you”.
Just like in the gospel, we will be judged according to our failure or good works towards God who is present amongst the un-godly.