Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf

From Cross to Crown: Christ is King | November 23, 2025

• Archdiocese of Oklahoma City

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Start with the paradox that changes everything: the same Jesus who hangs condemned on a cross is the one who reigns as King of the universe. In this episode, Monsignor Wolf traces how that tension—cross and crown—does not dilute faith but sharpens it, turning the liturgical year into a slow, bright unveiling of love that actually orders a chaotic world. From Advent’s apocalyptic readings to the steady rhythm of Sunday Mass, he connects the dots toward a single revelation: Jesus is all in all.

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Father Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

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This is Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf. This show deals with living the Catholic faith in our time, discovering God's presence in our lives, and finding hope in his word. And now, your host, Father Don Wolf.

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Welcome, Oklahoma, as a Living Catholic. I'm in Senior Don Wolf, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish and rector of the shrine of Blessed Stanley Rose here in Oklahoma City. On this, the last Sunday of the liturgical year, we culminate the entire cycle of our celebrations by acknowledging Christ as King. This seems oddly appropriate for us, even though we're not a people who celebrate kingship, nor do we bow down before the chair of inherited authority and governance. We are those for whom sovereignty resides in the will of the people, not in an acknowledged embodiment of government. And yet it seems appropriate that Christ is our king and the salvation won in him is our homeland. We the people confess Christ the King. And not just of the ins and outs of the life of the church. Jesus is all that. He is the one by whom we encounter the fullest will of God among us, the one who is the image of God and the fullness of the divine in our lives. But we celebrate Christ, the King of the universe, who has lordship over all things. For the more scientific-minded among us, this might be a cause for confusion, as it is even for some Christians, but that's an aspect of our celebration we'll get to by and by. Jesus is king. This is an especially notable aspect when looking at the wide murals of Christ as king that are often a part of the great domes of large basilicas. He's portrayed with the accoutrements of kingship, with crown and scepter seated on a throne and surrounded by angels and saints. Sometimes the image is completed with the figure of God the Father behind the throne and the hovering dove of the Holy Spirit over the crown itself. Walking up to look at these domes, they're usually designed to have the eyes of Jesus follow the onlooker, no matter which direction she turns or where the image is seen. Christ the King dominates the whole area and fills the entire artistic space. It's a way to make evident the intention of the feast, that Jesus Christ is the King and reigns in the person of the Savior of mankind and in accord with the will of the Father. It's also the artistic contrast with the figure of the suffering Christ on the cross, which usually can be seen at the same time. On the one hand, there is Jesus the condemned suffering the torture of the cross, designated Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews in all his pain and distortion. And in the same frame of reference, there is the overwhelming claim of Jesus as King of all things, worthy of our attention and of our loyalty. It's the same Jesus fulfilling the same mission, living out the same will of the Father. And yet the suffering Christ is at the center of our worship, even as the reigning Christ captures our eyes. Both of these identities are part of the revelation we enjoy, both are present in the other, always. Jesus is as much the king when hanging on the cross in agony, redeeming our sins in the gift of his life, as he is the resurrected and ascended Christ who stands at the apex of our attention. As we enter this feast day, there are three important elements to keep in mind as we focus our time and attention. And the first is the one most obvious to us. We've been building toward this celebration all year long. From the first Sunday of Advent last year through Christmas, Lent, Easter, and all of the various parts of our calendar, our interest and focus goes toward Jesus as the great and final gift of the Father to us for our salvation. Jesus is not simply an idea, not just a moment in time, and certainly not just the main character in a story about what it means to be brave and holy. As we find as we read through the scriptures, he is the premier invitation into the goodness of God among us. It's that goodness we give ourselves to as we go through the year. The culmination of the building energy of all we do during the year is the ultimate revelation of Jesus as the king. This is prefigured from the beginning, from the annunciation of the angel to Mary, through the ministry of Jesus up to his arrest, conviction, and crucifixion. There are many themes working at the same time in all these readings and celebrations, but they all participate in the great underlying theme, pointing our attention toward Jesus who is all in all. In fact, we begin Advent with the first two weeks devoted to the prediction of the apocalypse, the end of things, in preparation for the fulfillment of the promise of God to rescue his people. It may seem to be out of place to begin the new year of liturgy by reading the predictions of how the world we know will come undone, and begin to discohere into the chaos of competing energies and purpose. But these reminders are the stage upon which Jesus comes into the world and gathers everyone together as king. His kingship is amid the disorder of the time, when we recognize Christ as God's gift to us all. His gift of salvation is what orders and energizes all of humanity. Jesus is the savior of a whole world gone off tilt. He's not just the rescuer of souls and the gateway to heaven for wayward personalities. Take a good look at the world you know. Spot the craziness and unhappiness, discern the source of the lostness we feel, and then turn the turn and then turn to the promise of Jesus' presence. That's the arc of our liturgical year. Christ, the King of all, is the final goal we come to. This is also an important element amid how we gather Sunday after Sunday. You know, for many of us, going to Mass is simply the fulfillment of an obligation. That doesn't make it bad or illegitimate. Lots of our obligations are good in every way, from the responsibility of a parent and the care of a spouse to filling out our form 1040s and paying our light bills. But if we awaken to the understanding we're participating in the step-by-step revelation of Jesus as the gift of God to every part of our world, from the interpersonal and soulful to the interaction of the planets and the cycle of the seasons, then the continual celebration of the Eucharist as we build toward God's ultimate plan in Christ is something a lot more than ticking off the box of what I gotta do. Take a particularly benign example from the movie The Sixth Sense. In the film, there are a series of scary and fascinating scenes that grow in intensity and complexity as the story unfolds. When we come to the final revelation, when we find out who the main character is and what's happened in his life story, suddenly those scenes become much more interesting and much richer, since they're pointing us to the final great revelation at the end of the movie. In its own way, the movie becomes more interesting the second time we watch, not just because we're in on its secret, but because it's directing us to a truth that has laid hidden out in the open. Seeing it again and again is satisfying because the story is richly told, and each scene is a continuing revelation to the viewer, especially when we know the content of that revelation. Think of the gospels in the same way. Once we know Jesus is the King of all things, the announcement of Jesus' birth by the angels to the shepherds takes on a new cast. Jesus' confrontation with the demons during his exorcisms become a face-off with the power of truth, not just an attack on the stronghold of the devil. Jesus, as he stands before Pilate, is transformed into a prophetic moment rather than a victim's plea. And the Last Supper becomes a gateway to the sublime power to transform the world rather than simply a memory of something that happened a long time ago. All during the year we're pointing toward the great final revelation of the true vocation and true identity of Jesus. The second aspect of Jesus as King is the ennoblement of our humanity. We believe and profess Jesus to be human and divine, human in every way we're human, divine in every aspect of divinity. When Jesus is proclaimed and celebrated as the King of the universe, our humanity is dignified by this kingship. If it is true that Jesus is the Word through whom all things were made, it's also true that Jesus' humanity participates fully in this creative, exalted power and connects with us to reveal our own humanity with all these characteristics as well. We're part of Jesus' kingship. That's not so outlandish as it might sound. After all, the classical definition of a king is that as sovereign, he's the embodiment of the whole people of the kingdom. He participates in the life of those who make up the members of the kingdom, as well as being its leader and legislator. In English law, for example, treason was described as an offense against the body of the king. Rebels were treated as if they had assaulted the king in person and had put him in danger of his life. To overthrow the governance of the kingdom was to assault the king personally. Jesus as the king of all is an expression of the dignity and the wholeness of his kingdom, which includes all of us. We participate in the dignity, power, and creativity of Christ the King. In addition, as part of the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God and the Savior of the universe, we're restored to the dignity of the humanity we had in the beginning. This provides us a way to think about who we are and especially who we are to become in Christ. As it was put so well by one of the early church fathers, we would not have known how far we had fallen had Jesus not come to save us and show us the way to our true humanity. Without Christ, as the true Son of the Father, who has come among us, we would forever be wondering what the true capacity of our humanity should be and what it would be to live up to all God has for us. Jesus did not come just to show us the way to heaven. He came to show us how to live right here and right now. Think of the gift of forgiveness. We are awarded the promise of our forgiving Father. Just as the Father of the Prodigal Son embraced his Son when he returned, so our Father will embrace us upon our return, no matter how empty our stomachs and how disordered our lives. And since we've been forgiven, we're given the freedom to forgive those who've sinned against us, which means we don't have to be burdened with the resentment and anger turned against those who have sinned against us. We're free to forgive them to allow the weight of offense to slide off our shoulders so that we can live with the gift of freedom. If we had not known the words of Jesus spoken on the cross to those who crucified him, we would not have known it possible to imagine the depths of God's love. Without the revelation of our capacity to trust in God's forbearance, our lives would be lost in the uselessness of revenge, remorse, regret, and revision. Jesus came to unveil a different way of being human. This was an aspect of Jesus' ministry, especially reflected in the life of St. Paul. In his letter to the Thessalonians, he described an insight he had gained from his adherence to the life of Christ. Remember, Paul had never met Jesus in person, as the other apostles did, and in Paul's writings, there's no biographical description of Jesus at all. We can presume Paul had been catechized in the process of being brought into the faith. He knew as much as most people about the life of Jesus. But the details of where Jesus was born and the message he preached was unimportant to Paul's preaching and teaching. What mattered to him was that Jesus' life was in was that his life, Paul's life, was in imitation of the life of Christ. What had happened in Jesus was happening in Paul. Paul's signal word about this reality was when he confessed that I live, not I, but Christ lives in me. His life was bringing the life of Jesus into the world by way of his living the message of Jesus, as well as by introducing the presence of Christ to others. But even more so, Paul was happy to know his life was conformed to the gift of Jesus in the most radical way. He claimed that his sufferings, Paul's sufferings, made up for what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ on the cross. Paul knew his sufferings were participating in Jesus' redemption of humanity. So our own difficulties in life, our pains and regrets and anxieties are all part of bringing salvation to the whole world. They don't evaporate into the atmosphere forgotten and meaningless. Instead, they're an active part of the hope everyone has in his redemption. Our parents' admonition to offer it up when we complained of our tears and hurts was based on the firm Pauline insight that they are in union with all Christ did to pay the price for the sins of humanity. We are participants in redemption. There's hardly an aspect of humanity more important than this, both because sufferings will come to us and are inevitable in life, as well as because there is no more intimate a way to connect our lives to the lives of others. The kingship of Christ connects us to one another. We're the kingdom that forms the body of the king. We are so profoundly connected that the suffering of the king for our salvation permeates our lives, just as our suffering permeates one another. This potential could never have happened, could never have ennobled the afflictions of our lives had Christ not brought us to the prospect of what our humanity could be for one another. And one more thing. If we share the same humanity as Jesus Himself, then our lives have the potential to display the goodness of the divine. It was St. Irenaeus who wrote this signal description of this insight in the second century. The glory of God, he said, was man fully alive. We were made in the image and likeness of God. So when the stain of our sin is wiped away and the effects of our fallenness have been remedied, our lives have the capacity to disclose God to the whole world. That's an enormous job description for us, to be the glory of God in the world. But it's also the invitation to imagine we can be the greatest possible gift to everyone. If our lives are to remove the veil hiding God's glory from the world, then we've been given the gift to light up the darkness all around us, and we've been given it by the gift of our renewed humanity. That's what saints do, after all. Their lives show us what could be possible if we were attuned to the will of God in our lives and allowed Christ to shine through us. That was the special vocation of Saint Paul. He endured endless pains and punishments gladly, because they actually strengthened his message to the people around him. Saint Damien of Molokai gave his life away serving his people. He was glad to be able to displace himself so that the people around him were served to the fullest extent possible. Saint Joan of Arc was commanded by words from heaven to take up arms and to defeat the enemies of her country. Her responses to the questions put to her are still good reading for those who are interested to know of God's intervention in the prospective nations, and on and on. Saints disclose to us the prospects of the amazing and the extraordinary. They bring us to a dossier of moments in which it seems all of the limitations of humanity pass beyond their boundaries for the glory of God. Christ the King makes kings of us all. And finally, the kingship of Christ is for the whole universe. That sounds like the boldest claim of all, since it's hard to imagine anyone being animated by imagining a place for Christ as we look at the swimming biome in a microscope or study the veins in a leaf. Where's the kingship of Christ there? And you could make a good case that great biologists or cosmologists can get away without a commitment to Christ the King of all. But compared to the building block facts of the natural world, the implications of the kingship of the Lord Jesus is staggering. Our everyday is a reflection of the reign of Christ in our lives. At the beginning of John's gospel, Jesus is described as the Word through whom all was made. And for a long time I struggled with that description because it made it sound as though there was an additional complication to make the world the way God wanted it. It didn't make sense to me that the word of creation was spoken in Jesus. But I began to understand it better when I began to understand what we meant by being. I had always thought of this word as atomic particles and molecules and energy and nothing else. They are what it means to be. But our being isn't fully described by, say, what our bones are made of or what runs through our arteries. No, nor is the being of the world described by what kind of sand is on Mars or what sort of gases make up Jupiter. Those are only the building blocks of our bodies and the constituents of the planets. Our being is the sum of what it means for us to be in the world. Our feelings and our history, our preoccupations and our resentments, our relationships and our dreams, our love and our infatuations, our disappointments and our longings, and all of the parts of what make up our lives and make our lives go, that is our being. And it is through the word of Christ that God made all of this. That's the crucial part. The basis of our being is Christ. That is to say, the basis of our being is self-sacrificing, self-forgiving, self-forgetting, forgiving, trusting in God in love for God and for one another. Jesus was the gift of the Father for the salvation of the world. And the gift of God in the Word is given to the world so that every part of the world can be defined by it. In this world, we can choose another way to act, but this way will not be conformal to the way the world works. We can opt for domination, for example, and for destruction in order to get what we want, but in the end, these won't work. It would be as obtuse as imagining we could put the force of gravity in abeyance or cancel the truth of inertia. Because the Word of God speaks this truth into the world and all being comes about because of it. When we act in concord with this, every part of life flows into the original goodness of God's creation. The kingship of Christ is written into the whole of creation. Every aspect of what it means for us to be in the world is subject to the truths of this kingship. It is the ultimate truth, the final fact of living in this world of ours. That's how we can claim the lordship of Jesus, the kingship of Christ over everything. This kingship is an intimate part of the Stanley Rother story, for example. If we were looking through some other sets of meanings, trying to find out what it means when a good man is struck down in the goodness of his life by those who want to discontinue that very goodness, we're limited in what we can say. We can imagine there's a kind of grand justice in the world in which injustice is tolerated because the deepest components can carry us along to some ultimate justification. It would also be possible to imagine justice is always thwarted because our minds are perverted and thinking is irrational. Or we could decide that the world need not make any sense at all. It's made up simply of the sum of the things that just happen. But these options leave us bereft and empty at the death of a just and good man like Father Stan Rother. Not only that, there's something in us that longs for the more in a life and death like his. We're hungry to find a greater truth inside the small truths of his life, service, suffering, and death. But when we know Jesus is the Lord of all, our eyes are opened to the truth of Stan's life. What he endured is transformative, because the heart of life is in offering our lives to another. Or in the logic of Christ, if you want to be victorious, give yourself away. If you want to conquer, surrender yourself to God's will. If you want to have a place in life, first find a place for another. And if you want to truly live, then die. When we find these truths, the kingship of Christ is present in us. On the day of resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples in the upper room. He showed them his wounds and announced to them that, as the Father sent me, so I send you. This information should have terrified them because his wounds were there in front of them, still intact. And yet they were overjoyed. They saw there was a new world in the world he brought them. The resurrection wasn't just a new body for an old soul, it was a whole new way to be. In fact, it was Jesus who had become the king over life and suffering and death. And that's the same promise for us. As Christ is the king of all, we're offered the gift of his kingship. It's a bargain we can all brag about. Back in just a moment. We have a poem today called Remember That. Will Rogers used to say at the end of his radio chats, he'd say, Remember that, there's just as much money in the country now as there ever was. While not milk and honey to pour over the pains of so many, during the Great Depression it was his homely expression of hope, calculated to ease the pains of those who listen to his every refrain. But money not circulating is like blood all stopped. There may be plenty, a flood of hemoglobin, but unless it flows, the crisis grows until there's no life at all. For every time we look for an answer in the book of life and the brook of experience, it pays to pause and think. Not all is as it seems. Fool's gold can gleam, which is why we stoop to pick it up. We should try to pray too, listen to the divine truth, and then do what we can. There is just as much grace today that we can see as ever was at the Red Sea and the fall of Mana, and at Calvary. Remember that. That's remember that.org.