Feast of Christ, the King

Jesus, the Pantocrator

Final feast of the Church's Liturgical Year.

Celebrates Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father, reigning in splendor, and preparing to come (Latin: advent) again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

The feast of Christ, the King, is overshadowed by Advent and Christmas. This is a great shame because it is the summit of the whole year--the point toward which everything is moving.

At the end of the liturgical year, we celebrate Jesus coming in glory at the end of everything.

"Comfort one another with these words" (1 Thess?).

"Marana tha! Come, Lord Jesus!" (Rev).

Please see The Christ, the King for more information on the meaning of this title.

A Twentieth-Century Feast

"Christ the King: The Feast of Our Age."

In 1925 the celebration of Christ the King was instituted by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Quas Primas. For many Catholics the feast day approaches with little to no grandeur, and the celebration of the Lord’s Kingship is another ephemeral Sunday before the dawn of Christmas. Still, the Feast of Christ the King is just that, a feast. Though a hackneyed term in the Catholic mind, Catholics must remember that a feast is a call for contemplation and celebration. The Vicar of Christ, our Holy Father, Pope Pius XI asked the Church to establish a feast in honor of Christ’s Kingship. In his words, the feasts of Holy Mother Church “affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man’s nature,” because humanity “needs these external festivities so that the sacred rites, in all their beauty and variety, may stimulate him to drink more deeply of the foundation of God’s teaching.” And among the offerings of the Church, the Christ the King feast has a unique medicinal flavor. The Vicar of Christ then and now offers the Church “an excellent remedy for the plague which now infests society,” the scourge of secularism.

Pius XI, Quas Primas.

He is King of hearts, too, by reason of his "charity which exceedeth all knowledge."

Therefore by Our Apostolic Authority We institute the Feast of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ to be observed yearly throughout the whole world on the last Sunday of the month of October -- the Sunday, that is, which immediately precedes the Feast of All Saints. We further ordain that the dedication of mankind to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which Our predecessor of saintly memory, Pope Pius X, commanded to be renewed yearly, be made annually on that day.