The kingdom of God is the presence of God.
If we are Catholics, we want to work for the kingdom. God made us to want it, even if we don’t know how to put those desires into words. We want to bring about the kingdom. We mean it when we pray “thy kingdom come.” But as adults we need to make an effort to know what we mean by such strange words.
While that has become a dirty word in our secular vocabulary, the Church has for centuries demanded that Catholics become thoroughly involved in the politics of the day. It’s a part of our calling to change the world and bring about the Kingdom of God. […] As American citizens we have every right to be involved in the political process.
We are citizens of the Kingdom of God, unfolding in our world, and we are also citizens of the nation in which we live. The reason faith and public life will always find a mixture, a mingling, is because the same person who is a citizen is also a believer.
No reform will ever be complete, no renewal of worship ever perfectly realized, until we are joined with the angels and saints in the heavenly liturgy, adoring God face-to-face in His heavenly Kingdom: “a Kingdom of truth and life, a Kingdom of holiness and grace, a Kingdom of justice, love and peace.” (Preface for the Solemnity of Christ the King).
I knew a bishop once whose favorite verse in Scripture was Luke 17:10. “When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’” He said he would often repeat that verse to himself when he came to the end of a particularly exhausting day. When troubles had mounted and he was not sure that he had addressed them properly but he had tried and worked in the vineyard tirelessly, he presented whatever he had done to God and said, “I am a useless servant. I did only what was expected of me.”
This is the attitude worthy of the Kingdom of God. This is what it means to die to self and to live for Christ.
The key to unlocking the gift of the Kingdom of God in our midst is the wisdom – given through faith – to turn to the Lord with our brokenness and fear – and to seek his saving presence in our lives.
The greatest blessing of our lives is not some material good or worldly success but the revelation of the mysteries of the kingdom which God the Father has made to us.
