Your Royalty as God's Child

Yesterday we celebrated the feast of Christ, our King.  This morning in prayer I imagined the following conversation with the Lord. It went like this:

 

                I am King.

                You are a King’s daughter.

                You are royalty!

                You are the recipient of my inheritance,

eternal  life in my Kingdom.

                I secured that inheritance for you

 by my obedience as Son of Man to My Father’s will

—your salvation and the salvation of the whole world.

When I was nailed to a cross,

 when I crushed the head of Satan,

all nations, all kingdoms of the earth, all languages (cf. Daniel 7: 13-14)

were brought under My rule and reconciled to My Father.

As Daniel prophesied, “all peoples, all nations and languages

serve [God].

[ M]y dominion is an everlasting dominion

that shall not be taken away.”

(M]y kingdom shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7: 13-14)

 

Look, Lord, at the world!

 

The world as you know it is passing away!

God shall reign forever.

God reigns now and has reigned before this world ever came into existence and will reign eternally.

God never abandons us

As we read today’s first reading, Is 10: 5-7, 13b-16, we might want to imagine how Jesus would say this to us. I came up with the following imaginative conversation parallel to Isaiah’s message to those who brought harm to Israel:

                Dorothy Ann, nations rose up against my people Israel. They boasted of their of

                crimes against my people: raping women, killing those left as orphans following

                a hostile, bloody takeover. They destroyed sacred vessels and confiscated treasures.

They boasted of their military prowess, their domination and destruction of all

that survived the massacre. These same abominations persist throughout the

world of today and have been a reality of one nation putting down another, one

ruler putting down his people, one violent individual putting down another.

My inheritance you inflict:

Widow and stranger you have slain in your wars,

the fatherless you have murdered with violent weapons

 or with violent words of gossip;

women you have raped; young girls and boys you have sold into the sex slave;

young men and women you have killed for drug money

or by the fleeting pleasure of gossip;

unborn infants you have slaughtered in the womb.

And you have the audacity to say, as Assyria said:

“By my own power I have done it,

And by my wisdom, for I am shrewd…

(L)ike a giant I have put down the enthroned….”  (cf. Is 10: 5-7, 13b-16)

God’s response to us is contained in today’s psalm (Ps. 94: 7-8, 9-10, 14-15)

                “Understand, you senseless ones

                of my people;

                and, you fools, when will you be wise?

                “Shall he who shaped the ear not hear?

                Or he who formed the eye not see?

                Shall he who instructs nations

                not chastise,

                he who teaches [human beings] knowledge?

                “For the Lord will not cast off his people

                nor abandon his inheritance;

                but judgment shall again be with justice,

                and all the upright of heart shall

                follow it.”

My response: O God, have mercy.