Solemnity of Christ the King
In 1925, the Church celebrated a Jubilæum in honor of the 1,600th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea . The council fathers taking part in that ancient gathering in A.D. 325 had affirmed the full divinity of Jesus Christ as God the Son, one in being with God the Father. Their pronouncement became a creed that was later expanded into what we now call the Nicene Creed, which we still profess at Mass every Sunday.
Throughout that anniversary year, Pope Pius constantly emphasized the kingship of Christ as declared in the Creed: “His kingdom will have no end.” He stressed that theme throughout the year as it repeatedly appeared in the Church’s celebrations of the Annunciation, the Epiphany, the Transfiguration and the Ascension. As part of the Holy Year, which was afforded great attention and pomp by the Vatican, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims flocked to Rome, demonstrating great fervor for their faith. On December 11 of the jubilee year, and in order to acknowledge perpetually the supremacy of Jesus Christ over all men and women, nations and earthly allegiances, the pope issued the encyclical Quas Primas, which added the feast of “Our Lord Jesus Christ the King” to the annual Church liturgical calendar.
Popularly known as Christ the King, the full Latin title of the last Sunday of the liturgical year is Domini Nostri Iesu Christi Universorum Regis or Our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King. Pius XI stressed that “The manifold evils in the world are due to the fact that the majority of men have thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics…” His aim, in doing so, was to counter what the Holy Father regarded as the destructive forces of the modern world: secularism in the West and the rise of communism in Russia and fascism in Italy and Spain, along with the harbingers of the Nazism soon to seize Germany. The Pope sought to oppose the rule of Christ to the totalitarian claims of those ideologies.
With that encyclical, the original date for the feast’s observance was October 31st, the day before All Saints Day. However, after the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the day for its observance was transferred to the last Sunday of the Ordinary Time. Placed now at the end of the church year, with the traditional eschatological emphasis that accompanies the end of the Year of Grace, the festival now proclaims Christ as “the goal of human history, the focal point of the desires of history and civilization, the center of mankind, the joy of all hearts, and the fulfillment of all aspirations” (Gaudium et spes, ch. iv, §45).
Both Pope Francis and his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI have referred to the Solemnity of Christ the King, as “the crowning of the liturgical year.” So, the last Sunday of the liturgical year crowns all that has gone before and points ahead to Advent, which this year begins on December 3. In the Motu proprio Mysterii paschalis (14 February 1969), Saint Pope Paul VI wrote, “Following the teaching of the holy Fathers and the firm tradition of the Catholic Church, these Popes rightly thought that the unfolding of the liturgical year is not just a commemoration of the actions by which Jesus Christ, by dying, has brought about our salvation. Nor, according to them is this unfolding merely a commemoration of past events so that the faithful, even the more simple, might be instructed and nourished by meditating on them. They also taught that the celebration of the liturgical year ‘enjoys a sacramental force and a particular efficaciousness to nourish the Christian life’” (MP, (Pt. 1, par. 3).
The feast of Christ the King always falls on the last Sunday of the Church year—a new liturgical year begins the following Sunday with the first Sunday of Advent. This end-of-the-year feast is a fitting way to send the faithful into Advent, the holy season of preparing our hearts to better recognize and receive God who comes to us in the Child Jesus. On Christ the King, we remember that Christ will come again at the end of time to usher in the fullness of God’s kingdom, and it reminds us to recall that Jesus comes every day as well on the altars of the world.
Today’s Mass establishes the titles for Christ’s royalty: Christ is God, the Creator of the universe and wields a supreme power over all things. Christ is the Redeemer, He purchased our freedom by spilling His precious Blood and, in doing so, made humanity His property and possession. Christ is Head of the Church and Universal King, since the Father bestowed upon Christ the nations of the world as His special possession and dominion. Today’s feast also describes the qualities of Christ’s kingdom: supreme, extending not only to all people but also to their princes and kings; universal, extending to all nations and to all places; eternal, for “The Lord shall sit a King forever”; and spiritual, Christ’s “kingdom is not of this world.” — Rt. Rev. Msgr. Rudolph G. Gandas.
Nature and dignity 