Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (Year C) - 23 November 2025
23rd November 2025
“Christ’s kingdom is not just a figure of speech. Christ is alive, He lives as a man, with the same body He took when He became man, when He rose after His death, the glorified body which subsists in the person of the Word together with His human heart. Christ, true God and true man, lives and reigns. He is the Lord of the universe. Everything that lives is kept in existence only through Him.” - St Josemaria Escrivá
A reflection on today's Gospel reading by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:
“This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.”
There is a legend to the effect that when, to escape the wrath of Herod, Saint Joseph and the Blessed Virgin were fleeing into Egypt with the Divine Child, they stopped at a desert inn. The Blessed Mother asked the lady of the inn for water in which to bathe the Babe. The lady then asked if she might not bathe her own child, who was suffering with leprosy, in the same waters in which the Divine Child had been immersed. Immediately upon touching those waters baptised with the Divine Presence, the child became whole. Her child advanced in age and grew to be a thief. He is Dismas, now hanging on the Cross at the right hand of Christ!
Whether the memory of the story his mother told him now came back to the thief and made him look kindly on Christ, we know not. Perhaps his first intimation that he was suffering with the Redeemer came to him as he turned his tortured head and read an inscription that bore His name, “Jesus”; His city, “Nazareth”; His crime, “King of the Jews.” At any rate, enough dry fuel of the right kind gathered on the altar of his soul, and now a spark from the central Cross falls upon it, creating in it a glorious illumination of faith. He sees a Cross and adores a throne; he sees a condemned Man, and invokes a King: "Lord, remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy Kingdom."
Our Blessed Lord was owned at last! Amidst the clamour of the raving crowd and the dismal universal hiss of sin, in all that delirium of man's revolt against God, no voice was lifted in praise and recognition except the voice of a man condemned. If Peter, James, or John had cried out perhaps the friends would have rallied; perhaps the Scribes and Pharisees would have believed. But at that moment when death was upon Him, when defeat stared Him in the face, the only one outside the Small group at the foot of the Cross to acknowledge Him as Lord of a Kingdom, as the Captain of Souls, was a thief at the right hand of Christ.
At the very moment when the testimony of a thief was given, Our Blessed Lord was winning a greater victory than any life can win and was exerting a greater energy than that which harnesses waterfalls; He was losing His life and saving a soul. And on that day when Herod and his whole court could not make Him speak, nor all the power of Jerusalem make Him step down from the Cross, nor the unjust accusations of a courtroom force Him to break silence, nor a mob crying, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save” bring from His burning lips a retort, He turns to a quivering life beside Him, speaks, and saves a thief: "This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." No one before was ever the object of such a promise, not even Moses, nor John, not even Magdalen, nor Mary!
It was the thief's last prayer, perhaps also his first. He knocked once, sought once, asked once, dared everything and found everything. When our spirits stand with John on Patmos, we can see the white-stoled army in Heaven riding after the conquering Christ; when we stand with Luke on Calvary, we see the one who rode first in that procession, Christ, Who was poor, died rich. His hands were nailed to a Cross and yet He unlocked the keys of Paradise and won a soul. His escort into Heaven was a thief. May we not say that the thief died a thief, for he stole Paradise?
Oh, what greater assurance is there in all the world of the mercy of God? Lost sheep, prodigal sons, broken Magdalens, penitent Peters, forgiven thieves! Such is the rosary of Divine forgiveness.
(The Cries of Jesus From the Cross)
Prayer to Christ the King
O Jesus Christ, I acknowledge Thee to be the King of the universe; all that has been made is created for Thee. Exercise over me all Thy sovereign rights. I hereby renew the promises of my Baptism, renouncing Satan and all his works and pomps, and I engage myself to lead henceforth a truly Christian life. And in an especial manner do I pledge myself to labour, to the best of my ability, for the triumph of God and Thy Church. Divine Heart of Jesus, to Thee do I proffer my poor services to obtain the acknowledgement by every heart of Thy sacred Kingly power, and that thus the reign of Thy peace be firmly established throughout the whole universe. Amen.