Feast of Christ the King

Maryknoll lay missioner Rick Dixon challenges us to take on the humble qualities of Christ, our king.

On this feast day of Christ the King, I rush to read John 6, where Jesus withdraws to the mountain alone after a miracle when he knows the crowd is about to take him by force to make him king (Jn 6:15). This act signifies his kingship is not of this world and his priorities are solitude and child-like trust with his Father.

Jesus uses a child to represent the kingdom of God to teach that entering it requires the humility, dependence, and sincerity of a child, not worldly power or status. By placing a child among the disciples, he demonstrated that the “greatest” in the kingdom is the one who is humble and that to enter, one must “become like children.”

The act emphasizes that God values the “least of these” and that true greatness is found in a humble, trusting, and sincere faith. The child’s qualities of innocence and dependence are central to the metaphor of “King.” A kingship that contrasts with the disciples’ focus (and our world’s) on status, wealth, and power.

I love the image of a Child-King. The power of an innocent child:

“Our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth! I will sing of your majesty above the heavens with the mouths of babes and infants. You have established a bulwark against your foes, to silence enemy and avenger.” (Psalm 8)

Christ the King, born in a manger through the work of the Holy Spirit, incarnate in Mary, three times marginalized for being a woman who is poor, unwed and pregnant. And today we hear the horrific cries of children in Gaza, Sudan, and in our own country as draconian immigration wreaks havoc on children and their families.

After two years of working at immigrant shelters in Mexicali, Mexico, I met several “child kings.” I would like to share a poem about one of them:

The Child King

Ramon puts feet over head with the ease of a butterfly.
He and his father are up from Honduras,
fleeing terror and looking for work to pick our fruit,
a million cartwheels away from home.

Grandfather was killed for denouncing corruption.
Father is next in line.
No time to lose, lives packed in knapsacks and plastic bags,
should have been gone yesterday.

They find refuge for three days in Mexicali.

A meal and rest and then Papa continues weaving paracord through the handles of plastic milk jugs,
fitting them to Ramon’s tiny waist.
With each twist and cinch, eyes knot in fear.
Neither knows how to swim.

No chance for asylum,
they prepare to cross the All American Canal

At seven, Ramon is old enough to know he has no home,
and young enough to upright an upside down world,
spinning cartwheels.

“Watch me, watch me, here I am.”
Innocence calling to innocence.
All things new, floating across the All American Canal.

This will be their third attempt to reach the fields.
Fields that feed thousands in a valley called Imperial.
On their second try, over the wall and across the canal,
they make it all the way up to Interstate 8.

Hiding in a gully, the Border Patrol spots the boy and calls him out, “Amigito, salgas de alla.” [Buddy, get out of here.] “Weez no espeakid espanish herz,” he answers.

Out of the gully, he spins a cartwheel, and asks for water.
The agent kindly obliges and then drops them back to Mexico.

Tomorrow they’ll try again. After that I hear nothing.

Camping at Drop 3 on The All American Canal, a blue ribbon of water drops over turbines to illuminate this valley called Imperial,
and then flows on to irrigate its fields.

A slight breeze splashes through branches of salt cedars.
Roots dive to drink. Deep calls to deep.
Green feathery leaves, white flowers blooming all around.

I imagine Ramon spinning cartwheels and his father picking our fruit.
Oranges spin the color of sunrises, plumbs the color of sunsets,
Crowns of fire proclaiming the greatest gift of all.
A child’s heart big enough to hold everything anyone could
ever feel and love. Peace on Earth.

Rick Dixon is a Maryknoll lay missioner who worked in literacy ministries in El Salvador for nearly ten years before moving to Mexico for a two-year stint working in migrant ministries. He recently moved back to El Salvador to rejoin the Maryknoll lay missioner community there.

Photo courtesy of the Maryknoll Lay Missioners.