'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' Sunday Reflections, Christ the King, Year B

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From The Gospel ofJohn (2003) Directed by Philip Saville. [John 18:33-37, today's Gospel]


Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel John 18:33b-18 (New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition)   

Pilate asked Jesus, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’

Christ Before Pilate, Tintoretto [Web Gallery of Art]


The Kingdom of God breaks into our lives very often in quiet, apparently insignificant ways. More than 50 years ago, shortly after I was ordained, I was stopped by an elderly woman in a poor part of Dublin, just around the corner from where I had gone to school. She wasn't well dressed but didn't ask me for anything. She simply wanted to tell me how lonely she was. She kept repeating that.

I never met that woman again but I have not forgotten here. I often pray for her soul and also pray that one day she will welcome me into the heavenly home that God wills for all of us. That encounter at a street corner in Dublin has been an ongoing grace for me, an experience of the Kingdom of God breaking through in what would seem to have been a totally insignificant event.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, Jesus tells us at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3). Being poor in spirit means knowing one's need of God. The woman who stopped me in the street was expressing that because she saw that I was a priest and in some way a representative of the Lord.

The only thing I could give that poor woman, who was old enough to be my grandmother, was a listening ear. But she gave me a glimpse into the Kingdom of God, a gift that has lasted all these years.

My kingdom is not from this world, Jesus tells us in today's gospel as he stands before Pilate. But his kingdom is constantly breaking through in this world, in very ordinary, unplanned encounters when God gives us the grace to see and to hear - and we accept that grace.

Head of a Woman, Van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

Responsorial Psalm [Philippines, USA]

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