Monsignor Enrique Díaz Díaz shares with Exaudi readers his reflection on the Gospel of this Sunday, November 23, 2025, entitled:  “God has transferred us to the Kingdom of his beloved Son.”

***

2 Samuel 5:1-3:  “They anointed David king over Israel”

Psalm 121:  “Let us go with joy to meet the Lord”

Colossians 1:12-20:  “God has transferred us to the Kingdom of his beloved Son”

Luke 23:35-43:  “Lord, when you come into your kingdom, remember me.”

As the centenary of the Cristero resistance approaches, a conflict in which many martyrs gave their lives defending the faith, the need to proclaim Christ as our King grows ever stronger in a world where violence and crime seem to reign, where lies and corruption have taken hold, where power and money dictate their terms. Does Christ reign in our midst? Today, as we celebrate this feast so dear to the Mexican people, “Christ the King,” a response is imperative, not so much with words and shouts, but with consistency in our attitudes and actions. It is a feast that closes the entire liturgical cycle, but it also teaches us the true meaning of time and nature: they belong to God and are destined to give glory to God. Not in a selfish sense, as if God needed millions of people praising him to be happy, but in the sense of the greatest generosity, which reveals to us how the happiness of humankind is the greatest glory of God.

When man finds God in his heart, when he seeks to live in His image and likeness, when he becomes a creator and generator of life and beauty, then man finds his greatest fulfillment. But when he attacks God head-on under the pretext of respecting human dignity, he becomes so unbalanced that he loses all meaning and ends up in chaos, turning against himself. Our society may be able to organize itself without God, but it will always have a huge void in its heart that it will try to fill with power, wealth, or pleasure, as we have been seeing and suffering in recent years. Of course, when the image of God is used for man’s perverse ends, it ultimately destroys both society and individuals.

Today, more than ever, we are urged to turn our gaze to Christ and recognize him as our king, but also to discover the solid foundations of his kingdom. The kingdom of Jesus is very different from what people could have imagined, far removed from the ambition for power of a few. Jesus comes to offer a kingdom of life. His proposal is the participation of all peoples and all nations in a full life as children of God. It is to make the Father’s plan a reality. However, he uses neither power nor money nor force establishing his Kingdom: his only weapon is love, a complete love, a total love.

On this day, we are invited to contemplate him as Saint Luke presents him: nailed to the cross, with a sign bearing his sentence, surrounded by authorities, soldiers, and a thief, mocking his reign and challenging him to demonstrate his power. A failed king? He might seem so in the eyes of the world, and so do all those around him, even his disciples. The paradox of a king nailed to the cross reminds us of what Jesus said to Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world.” And he is not referring to his kingdom existing on a spiritual or ethereal plane, but rather to a very real and concrete one, as demonstrated by his entire life, his parables about the Kingdom, his attention to those who suffer most, and his commitment to the humble and despised. His kingdom is not like the world where force and power dominate; his kingdom is deeply connected to love, self-giving, and service. When they wanted to name him “king”, in another sense, he had to flee, since he had not come to be served, but to serve.

By calling ourselves disciples of Jesus today and proclaiming him as King, we make a true commitment to fight for his ideals and in his style. We cannot condone the entire chain of violence that has been unleashed. We do not accept, as Christians, or even as human beings, the cruel massacres and horrendous crimes that have occurred. Likewise, we raise our strong protest. But we also examine ourselves and try to discover what is failing in this society. A new kind of education is needed—one that fosters love, responsibility, and acceptance of the Gospel—and this can only be found in the example of Jesus. The kingdoms of power, force, and lies will only fall if we build a kingdom of truth, justice, and life.

We need to draw closer to this King and learn from Him His self-sacrifice and the way He builds His kingdom. We must seek life for all and abandon selfishness and individualism. In this world that often considers God superfluous or foreign, we confess with Peter that only Jesus has “words of eternal life.” If we want to recover the true meaning of humanity, we have no other option than to open modern man anew to God, to the God who speaks and communicates His love to us so that we may have abundant life, to the God who becomes flesh and presence in Jesus, our King. The commitment to justice, reconciliation, and peace finds its ultimate root and fulfillment in the love that Christ has revealed to us. All believers must translate our homage to Christ the King into a serious commitment to building His kingdom, to loving the poor, and to fighting for true justice.

How do we honor Christ the King? The Feast of Christ the King is a feast to examine our attitudes toward Christ and toward our brothers and sisters; a feast to “enthrone” this King of Love in our families; a feast to become his faithful followers, full of hope, and tireless builders of a different Kingdom.

Good and Merciful Father, who willed to establish all things in your beloved Son, King of the universe, grant that every creature, freed from all slavery, may serve your majesty and praise you eternally. Amen.