23rd November 2025 –
All of us make mistakes, indeed we human beings often get things wrong! Our judgement is not that reliable. In fact faulty judgements concerning ourselves and certainly others is actually due to a weakness caused by sin. Certainly we recognise such a state in others if not always in ourselves! All of us are eager to notice and perhaps help others remove their faults without an overwhelming effort to remove flaws and limitations in our own lives! For all humanity’s lack of charity, meanness of spirit and even cruelty, our Creator does not lose patience – what is more, so that we might achieve what He wished for us, He offers forgiveness and reconciliation, and He devised a plan that would make it possible for men and women to share in the life of Divinity – to share His own life of pure justice and truth!
The way that Jesus has marked out means becoming like Him – Jesus leads, we follow. But being sinful means that we do not always keep step with Him. Consider a parent with their child. One minute they are walking hand in hand. The next moment the mother or father pauses and calls to the child to come on for the child has been distracted by something or other. Yet another time the child runs on ahead, and is told to wait as there may be dangers up ahead, perhaps the child is scolded for being reckless, and later of course, being tired, mum or dad may have to carry the child for a while. This in practice, reflects our journey with Jesus. Like a good parent Jesus keeps us close to Him so that we will arrive safely home at journeys end.
The reason that Jesus is so insistent on His Way, is because He knows there is no other that will get us to our intended destiny. He has paid too high a price to be half-hearted in His invitation or indecisive in His demands. Of course we know that Pilate asked Jesus: ‘Are you a King then?’ and He replied: ‘Yes, that is why I came’ (Jn 18:32). But the Kingdom Jesus came to establish is quite different to the kingdom of this world. But to follow Him is to enter into His Kingdom.
The Kingdom of God is opposed to the kingdom where the values of this world are worshipped and where the weak and unimportant are expendable, where we can see that Satan is indeed the ‘prince of this world’ (Jn 16:11). However, the Kingdom of God is with us now – it is wherever Jesus is, particularly, and according to His own words, it is present in the least – in the hungry, the homeless, the sick. Wherever the true dignity of the human being is recognised – where every stage of life is valued and life is seen as a great and wonderful gift – where there is compassion and mercy, where men and women strive for justice and truth, then the Kingdom of God is clearly present.
The Christian vocation, the vocation of all the baptised, is to proclaim the Kingdom of God. It is a priestly vocation, for it draws men and women to the Divine Life, it is a prophetic vocation for it speaks the Truth in opposition to the values and power of this world, it is a royal vocation for it seeks to establish the rule and dominion of love. Our King has summoned us to share in this priestly, prophetic and royal vocation, to be His Body – to give Him our feet, our hands, our tongues that all may see and desire to be part of His everlasting Kingdom, and hear from Him: ‘Indeed, I promise you, today you will be with me in paradise.’
