This week, as we celebrate with family and friends – and remember and miss greatly those family and friends who once sat with us and are now waiting for us on the other side of the veil – it would seem that burying ourselves in various psalms of thanksgiving would be a most appropriate thing to do.

This coming Sunday is the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. What a name for a feast! That said, writing as an American, ours is a nation that doesn’t like kings all that much. Kings often conjure up in our minds images of men seated on thrones, living in luxury, remote from their people, who are often living much simpler and harder lives. How then are we to enter into, let alone celebrate, this feast?

As we draw nearer to the end of the liturgical year with next week’s solemnity of Christ the King, there is an increasingly urgent tone in the Scriptures. This coming Sunday, God’s Word through the prophet Malachi warns us that “the Day is coming,” that is the Day of King Jesus’ return, of wrapping up history, of judgment, and of making all things new. This “Day” is a certainty. It’s going to happen. And each and every one of us is going to stand face to face before the Lord of lords and King of kings. This King and Lord is gentle, compassionate and merciful – blessed be He! He is also, however, “a consuming fire”…

The world is longing for what only God can give — unity in the midst of division, healing in the face of pain, forgiveness where hurt has been done. And God does this through the Church, the body of Christ, broken, frail and sinful as we all can be. This means we must be different than what we see, hear and read all around us.