Our Father 5: Thy Kingdom come

The two petitions ‘Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done’ are something of a curiosity, since we are in them praying for something that will certainly happen.  As St Augustine says in his Commentary on the Psalms ‘He will come whether we wish it or not,’[1] and the same goes for our praying for His will to be done – of which more next time.

So what is this ‘Kingdom’ that we pray for daily, and what do we mean when we pray for it?

The  word we render as ‘Kingdom’ ‘Basileia’, seems to refer to past, present and future.  Just as there is a three-fold coming of Christ – His coming at the Incarnation, His coming in glory at the end of time, and between these His coming to us in our souls, so also the Kingdom that He establishes, and that we pray for has a three-fold significance,  -the Kingdom established in time in his death and resurrection, the spiritual upbuilding of the Kingdom in the life of grace, and the establishment of heaven as our true native land, the Kingdom that is to come.

As the Catechism puts this:

The Kingdom of God lies in the future, when Christ in the age to come hands over the Kingdom to His Father, but has already been brought near, especially in His death and Resurrection, and is in our midst in the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist. (CCC2816)

Looking to the Old Testament, the first time the Kingdom of God is mentioned in the Scriptures unequivocally is in the book of Exodus,  ch.19, three months after the  departure from Egypt, the first general encounter between God and His chosen people, at Mount Sinai.   God says, through Moses: ‘

‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. ⁵ Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, ⁶ and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. ”(Ex. 19.4-6)

The Kingdom, that is, is identified with Israel, as a ‘Holy Nation’ a ‘Kingdom of priests’  This is well before the people had a land, and centuries before they had a King – the exodus is variously dated sometime between 1446 and 1225 BC, whilst Saul’s reign happened  c. 1021–1000 BC.  So the ‘King’ of the Kingdom is God Himself, and at this stage that Kingdom is purely spiritual, not to do yet with bricks and mortar and the establishment of the land.

When later the Israelites ask for a king, there is a curious ambiguity about how God receives this.  On the one hand He says to Samuel ‘they have rejected Me from being king over them.’(1 Samuel 8.7) but on the other hand it is through the Line of David that the promised Messiah is to come to rule the nations: After Saul’s demise and David’s being established as king in Jerusalem, David offers to build a temple for the Lord, but God through His prophet forbids this in this way:

‘the Lord will make you a house. ¹² When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³ He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. ¹⁴ I will be his father, and he shall be my son. When he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men; ¹⁵ …¹⁶ And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever.’” (2 Sam 7.11-16)

As is often the case with the scriptures this text both refers to historical events – Solomon was to succeed David, was to build a temple, and was to be punished for his own iniquities – but it also points forward the the pre-eminent Son of David Who was to be chastened with the stripes of the sons of men and have a Kingdom and a throne, established forever.

The Vatican II dogmatic constitution, Lumen Gentium, identifies the Old Testament ‘Kingdom’ promises as referring to the Church, saying:

‘In the old Testament the revelation of the Kingdom is often conveyed by means of metaphors. In the same way the inner nature of the Church is now made known to us in different images taken either from tending sheep or cultivating the land, from building or even from family life and betrothals, the images receive preparatory shaping in the books of the Prophets.(Lumen Gentium 6)

In the New Testament this Kingdom imagery continues:  The Kingdom of heaven is likened to a sheepfold ‘whose one and indispensable door is Christ.’(cf.Jn. 10:1-10) It is a flock of which God Himself foretold He would be the shepherd,(Cf. Is. 40:11; Ex. 34:11ff) and whose sheep, although ruled by human shepherds; are nevertheless continuously led and nourished by Christ Himself, the Good Shepherd and the Prince of the shepherds,(Cf Jn. 10:11; 1 Pt. 5:4.) who gave His life for the sheep.(Cf. Jn. 10:11-15.)

So the reality of the Kingdom, which emerges in the reality of the Church is primarily a Spiritual reality, and an incorporation into Christ. St Cyprian writes, in his commentary on the Our Father, that perhaps ‘the Kingdom of God means Christ himself …as he is our resurrection, since in him we rise, so he can also be understood as the Kingdom of God, for in him we shall reign.’[2] 

So we move on to the establishment of the Kingdom in and through us.  There is a tendency among unbelievers to accuse Catholics of prompting a kind of ‘pie in the sky’ morality whereby we can sit back and not worry about the evils of this world because it will all be sorted out in heaven.  However,  although  "thy kingdom come" refers principally to ‘the final coming of the reign of God through Christ's return.’, that ‘blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ,’ (Titus 2.13), Nonetheless the hope of heaven is precisely what focuses us upon our mission in this present world: ‘Since Pentecost, the coming of that Reign is the work of the Spirit of the Lord who "complete(s) his work on earth and brings us the fullness of grace."(cf CCC2818)  At the same time this activity in building up the kingdom comes with a caveat: whilst, as it says in the Catechism ‘Man's vocation to eternal life does not suppress, but actually reinforces, his duty to put into action in this world the energies and means received from the Creator to serve justice and peace’ we still have to distinguish between social activism and the establishment of the Kingdom. (Cf. CCC 2820)  Fos this reason it is very important to remember that great and good as it is to establish the means both great and small  of alleviating the misery of the needy and  poor, to promote peace or to fight for justice, yet the work of the Church is not primarily these things – the emancipation of slaves is not  even mentioned by Our Lord, but comes in as it were as a side-effect of the work of spreading the Gospel that proclaims ‘in Christ there is neither male nor female,  Jew nor Greek, slave or free, but all are one in Christ.’  What is primary is to preach Christ and Him crucified.  Other things are in relation to this primary mission.

This work of spreading the Kingdom is established in the sacramental life of the Church, especially the  Eucharist, and lived out in the new life proposed to us by Christ in laid out for us in the beatitudes.

The  Beatitudes invite us to the threefold life of grace, the purgative state,  the active, and  the illuminative.  To achieve real happiness we need to purify our desires and turn ourselves away from the things that obstruct us and prevent us from attaining social joy, and ultimately the Kingdom of heaven.  We should grow, so that we no longer seek primarily external goods, such as honour and wealth, nor are swayed by the bodily passions of fear and desire.  This is a process of purification that moves on to an active charity, firstly giving what is justly owed, then, for the love of God going beyond that to considering not so much what we owe, or whether we owe anything at all to this particular poor or sorrowful or otherwise needy person, but rather through reverence for God to consider only the other person’s needs.  Finally in contemplative prayer we are purified in our hearts and brought to the kind of peace that arising from within causes peace in others. That is to say,  "The kingdom of God (is) …righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit."(Romans 14:17)

This is the real profile of religious believers.  Despite regarding this life as not our true homeland, the saints and the martyrs were steady and fundamental realists –Our Lady who stood and watched her Son bleed and die, St Ignatius of Antioch who begged his disciples  ‘Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, which are my way of reaching to God. I am God's wheat, and I am to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I may become the pure bread of Christ’ (Letter to the Romans); Fr Damien who went to Molokai in the knowledge that he was likely to contract leprosy, saying ‘I make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all to Jesus Christ’; Maximilian Kolbe, who offered his life in the death camp to save another man, knowing that what he was facing was slow starvation and who was once heard to say in the camp:  ‘Do not worry about me or about my health: the good Lord is everywhere, and holds every one of us in His great love’; - Mother Teresa, who described her work at one stage as ‘doing the impossible for the ungrateful’.:  these are not people who shirked the real world – in fact they engaged with it with a courage which puts our mediocrity to shame – and they engaged with it at a deeper level of heroism than I have yet heard of being produced by secular humanism.   

So what, finally are we looking forward to? At this time of year in the readings set before us by the Church we are saturated with warnings and exhortations relating to the end times.  On Sunday the first reading for the Office of readings promised us that

‘The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,

before the day of the Lord dawns, that great and terrible day.(Joel 2.30) ,

whilst at Mass last Sunday we heard that

‘There is going to be a time of great distress, unparalleled since nations first came into existence.’(Daniel 12.1)

Why then do we look forward To the end of the age? Because Christ will Come!  Can we truly desire this?

Augustine writes: ‘He who is without anxiety waits without fear until his Lord comes. For what sort of love of Christ is it to fear his coming? Brothers, do we not have to blush for shame? We love him, yet we fear his coming. Are we really certain that we love him? Or do we love our sins more? Therefore let us hate our sins and love him who will exact punishment for them. He will come whether we wish it or not. Do not think that because he is not coming just now, he will not come at all. He will come, you know not when; and provided he finds you prepared, your ignorance of the time of his coming will not be held against you.’A commentary of St Augustine on Psalm 95

We need purity of heart and intention, to focus with clarity on the meaning of our hope. Christians will take as their own and read out during advent the prophecies of Isaiah, the new heavens and the new earth with all those lambs dwelling with wolves and lions eating inappropriate fodder – but the central theme is the Lord Himself Who will ‘rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in [His] people,’ Who will ‘create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy’  (Isa 6518-19).  This present and comforting Lord is promised to us by Christ Himself, Who says ‘I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no-one will take your joy from you.   In that day you will ask nothing of me.’(Jn16.22). Of course, in part this promise was fulfilled in the Resurrection, but then the Lord goes on to say in His prayer to the Father ‘Father I desire that they also, whom Thou hast given me may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which Thou hast given Me in Thy love for Me before the foundation of the World.’ (1.Jn 17.24).  This risen relationship of comfort and joy with God continued to be preached by the apostles: ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ (1 Cor 13.12)

This reality looked for in the future was generally preached, but was seen more as something already attained and attainable in this world, already accessible in a living relationship with Our Lord, and in the sacrifice of the Mass. The author of Hebrews writes, referring back to the formation of the earlier covenant with Moses with its dramatic sound effects and visual aids:  ‘you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest,  and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers entreat that no further messages be spoken to them.  But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,  and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel….let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.’  Hebrews 12.

This is the basis of human hope, and the whole of our eschatology is a commentary upon it.  It was in preaching this message that the faith of Christians was preached and spread from Asia to Britain before a hundred years had passed.

The early Christians looked for an early return of the Saviour – so much so that St Paul had to quell the anxieties of those who had lost dear ones, that by dying they would not miss out on the coming Kingdom (cf I Thess. 4.14) .  Over time, as our understanding of the age of the world has increased, the time we have been waiting has also increased – or has it?  The longest time, in the present state of medicine, that any Christian has to wait before meeting his living Lord is about a hundred years.  Most of us will not live so long, and some of us will die very much younger than that.   In this situation, not new, all of us should look daily for the coming of Christ, at least in our own lives, with hope and not with fear.  As St Cyprian put it in On Mortality:

‘The kingdom of God, beloved brethren, has begun to be at hand; the reward of life and the joy of eternal salvation and perpetual happiness and the possession of paradise once lost are now coming with the passing of the world; now the things of heaven are succeeding those of earth, and great things small, and eternal things, transitory. What place is there here for anxiety and worry? Who in the midst of these things is fearful and sad save he who lacks hope and faith?   For it is for him to fear death who is unwilling to go to Christ.  It is for him to be unwilling to go to Christ who does not believe that he is beginning to reign with Christ.’

By this second petition of the Our Father we look for the coming of Christ: Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus!’