What is the kingdom? And why should we ask for it? It is evident that it is a New Kingdom that as Christians, by faith in what Jesus announced to the first disciples, we must ask, know and desire for ourselves and for all.
It is certainly not a kingdom to be understood in a territorial sense. The Gospels speak of the kingdom in a spiritual sense. "My Kingdom is not of this world" : it is Jesus' answer to Pilate. It is the Kingdom of God that Jesus invoked, in His prayer of the Our Father. Jesus, as our elder brother, joins us to ask and obtain from the Father a kingdom of universal communion, without boundaries, as a final act of the promise of eternal and inexplicable happiness, marked by His return.
It is also true that in the Gospels we speak of a kingdom of God that is near (cf Mk 1:15), in our midst (cf Lk 17:21), meaning, with the expression Kingdom of God, Christ Himself in person, who already came, but the verb "come" has reference to the future and it seems to indicate that the Kingdom is yet to come.
Once again in his book on the Our Father, Pope Francis helps us to clarify on this verse "your kingdom come". The kingdom of God is there, the kingdom of God will come. These two times are very important.
Jesus already came - the Holy Father explains - He became incarnate, He became man like us and He is with us, every day, until the end of the world (see Mt 28.20). Let us be possessed by this certainty of His first coming. But at the same time, the kingdom of God has not yet come entirely. And Jesus gives us this hope, the kingdom will come, our future is the possession of the kingdom of God, and we should wait, with confidence, with that same certainty with which the creatures waited for the future Redeemer (Jesus to Luisa, in a passage of 1928).
It is important an inner conversion of man who is called to invoke, to beg (Pope Francis uses here a strong verb) the coming of the Divine Kingdom so that it can be established in total fullness. God's preference is towards the poor, the beggars; They are the protagonists of history, of salvation. It is there that the kingdom of God is born, in every man who begs, not only materially; each of us is a spiritual beggar who shouts "Maranatha - come Lord Jesus".
But what is the kingdom of God? Jesus explains this to the disciples through parables, images taken from the rural world: The Kingdom of God is a treasure hidden in the field; It is the precious pearl of great value (cf Mt 13, 44-45); It is like the seed thrown into the earth, which takes root and develops by itself, whether the peasant sleeps or watches; The Kingdom of God is similar to the mustard seed which is the smallest of all seeds but when it grows it becomes the greatest (see Mk 4 26-32).
The whole Kingdom of God is in grain of no weight, practically invisible. The Kingdom of God resides, once again Francis repeats, in the little Gospel that everyone can carry in a bag or pocket and read every day. But the Kingdom of God is also as big as the land that God Himself has given us as a home in which we can all live together and which, precisely because it is a common home, must be kept in mind by everyone.
The Kingdom of God is God’s creative Word which is entrusted to the earth, that is, to each of us to bear fruit. It is the Word that is welcomed by the simple, the humble, who let themselves be worked by the action of the Holy Spirit and allow God to dwell and perform wonders in them. Like Mary, as a fruitful land that received the seed of the Divine Word. The Kingdom of God therefore requires the collaboration of the creature, but it is and remains above all an initiative and gift of the Lord (Pope Francis-Angelus June 14, 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgvQJ4pZa-M
In the Diary of Luisa Piccarreta, Jesus speaks to her of a great Gift for all humanity: It is the Kingdom of the Divine Will. Jesus' goal is that this Kingdom descend on earth amidst creatures, even now! In a passage from 1926, Jesus again tells Luisa that His ideal in creation was the Kingdom of His Divine Will in the soul of the creature. His first purpose was to make man an equal image of the Divine Trinity by virtue of the fulfillment of His Will upon him, but, since man withdrew from it, this Kingdom could not be realized.
In the Redemption Jesus came to realize this ideal... He formed His first Kingdom in the Heart of the Celestial Mother. Before leaving for Heaven, Jesus made another more solemn promise, that of the Kingdom of His Divine Will in the prayer of the Our Father to give it more value and obtain the Kingdom as soon as possible, so that this Kingdom would be prayed and desired by the Son with the same Will of the Father.
Now, in these times of effusion of the Holy Spirit, God wants to extend this Kingdom to everyone, to bring man back to his origins, to the order, to the place and to the purpose for which he was created by God. It is a Kingdom of peace, justice and Love, to live as children and not as servants.
‘Jesus, I love You, and because I love You, give me the Kingdom of your Divine Will.’
(From Luisa Piccarreta’s Diary, 1928)
FIAT