Sunday Meditation: To Testify to the Truth

The final week of the liturgical calendar is dedicated as The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.  The Solemnity only dates back to 1925 to the Encyclical of Quas primas by Pope Pius XI.  I wrote a post back in 2020 on the read of “Quas primas: The Institution of the Feast of Christ the King.”  For the Year B of the calendar, the Church chooses to read the passage from the Gospel of John where Pontius Pilate integrates Jesus on the claim He is King of the Jews.

 

Pilate said to Jesus,

"Are you the King of the Jews?"

Jesus answered, "Do you say this on your own

or have others told you about me?"

Pilate answered, "I am not a Jew, am I?

Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me.

What have you done?"

Jesus answered, "My kingdom does not belong to this world.

If my kingdom did belong to this world,

my attendants would be fighting

to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.

But as it is, my kingdom is not here."

So Pilate said to him, "Then you are a king?"

Jesus answered, "You say 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."

~Jn 18:33-37

 

Fr. Geoffrey Plant provides a comprehensive understanding of the Pilate/Jesus confrontation and what is meant by Kingdom and the Truth.

I also love this short homily by a Dominican Brother from the Western Region of the regions in the United State, Br. Anthony Maria Ackerman, O.P. 

A point to take with you from Brother Anthony, when Jesus says “my Kingdom is not of this world,” He is not referring to a spiritual world, but of a Kingdom we are to make of this world.

 

Sunday Meditation: "You say 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."

 

Instead of a hymn, I want to provide a dramatization of the Pilate/Jesus confrontation.  Four years ago when expounding on the Gospel of John, I provided the Pilate/Jesus confrontation as portrayed in the Jesus of Nazareth movie.  Today I want to provide the confrontation as portrayed in the Passion of the Christ movie.

 

The Passion of the Christ movie, Mel Gibson used the original languages, and I think Pilate and Jesus in this scene are speaking in Latin.