Crown Him with many crowns

Crown Him with many crowns...
     Crown Him the Lord of Life...
     Crown Him the Lord of Love...
     Crown Him the Lord of Peace...
     Crown Him the Lord of Years...

Thus, we sang this morning in our opening hymn for the Feast of Christ the King. This feast, which inaugurates the final week of the liturgical year, resonates with the joy, the hope, and the glory of Easter. It brings together life and death, space and time, in an eschatological hope and yearning. The Kingdom of Heaven is both here, but not yet. And so we yearn, we long to behold the Face of God.

The proper name of the feast is: Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Jesus Christ is King, not of a country, or of the earth, but of the whole and entire universe--of all that exists, of all that has been created, of all that is and is yet to be. And what kind of King is He? A shepherd King. A humble King. The Good Shepherd. In Ezekiel, we hear these words:

     I myself will look after and tend my sheep. As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds 
     himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. I will rescue them...I myself
     will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest...The lost I will seek out, the strayed I
     will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal...

Our Lord Jesus Christ is King and Shepherd of every one of us, whether we acknowledge His kingship, or not. Whether we accept His shepherding, or not. He will seek out the lost. He will seek out those who choose to run in the opposite direction, as Jonah did when called to preach to the city of Nineveh. The Shepherd seeks us out, because the love of God for us is relentless.

If God is Shepherd, then we, too, are called to be shepherds. Whether pope, priest, or people with no specific ecclesiastical office, all have a call to shepherd those in their care. God has entrusted us to one another, now and for all eternity.