Feast of Christ the King

Craft a paper machine globe with Cross
(directions coming soon!)

Bake a Globe Cake with Cross and Crown

Serve a 'regal feast' in honor of Christ the King!

Christ the King Coloring page from Crusaders for Christ

Vintage Christ the King Graphic- Free use!

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Christ our King: an explanation of the new feast from a historical and dogmatic Standpoint

The Rulers of Russia by Father Denis Fahey Impr. 1931

Last Sunday of October
Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ ~ The King

By: Dom Gueranger
Liturgical Year- Time After Pentecost Book V
Impr. 1927

The Kingdom of Heaven - Holy church - is seen bringing forth out of her treasure "things new and old." Although she can never add new dogmas to the deposit of Faith entrusted to her, as the ages go by she is seen understanding more perfectly and explaining more fully those treasures in her keeping. She is a living body, not a a statue, and she can develop, though she can never changer her nature. Hence, guided by the Holy Spirit of him who has promised to be with her not merely for a few centuries but  unto the end of the world, she defines or emphasizes certain points of doctrine as she sees fit, considering the needs of the times. We have an example in the institution of the feast of the Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ by the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Pius XI, in the jubilee year 1925, and explained to the faithful in the Encyclical Quas Primas.

Christians have ever hailed our divine Lord as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It was as King that the representatives of the Eastern world came to adore him in the manger; it was as a King, albeit not knowing what he did, that the official representative of the Western world lifted him up upon the Cross. The patriarchs and prophets of the old dispensation foretold his royalty; he spoke constantly of his kingdom: when asked plainly whether he were in truth a king by the representative of Ceasar, he acknowledged that such indeed he was, though of a kingdom not of this world.

"His Kingship is founded upon the ineffable hypostatic union. It is spiritual, and concerned with spiritual things. It is opposed to none other than to that of Satan, and to the powers of darkness. Christ is King over angels and men; King over men's hearts and wills; his Kingship demands of its subjects a spirit of detachment from riches and earthly things, and a spirit of gentleness. They must hunger and thirst after justice and, more than this, they must deny themselves and carry the cross."

Yet though his is a spiritual kingdom, opposed to not just earthly polity, "it would be a grave error to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures committed to him by the Father, all things are in him power. All men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ. In him is the salvation of the individual, in him is the salvation of society."

To-day we sadly behold "a world undone," largely paganized in principles and outlook, and, in recent years, in one country even glorying in the name of "pagan." At the best, governments mostly ignore God; and at the worst, openly fight against him, as we of to-day are witnessing in the Old World and in the New. Even the statesman's well-meant efforts to find a remedy for present ills and, above all, to secure world peace, prove futile because, whereas peace is from Christ, and possible only in the Kingdom of Christ, his name is never mentioned throughout their deliberations or their documents. Christ is kept out of the State schools and seats of higer education; and the rising generations seem to be taught anything and everything save to know, love and serve him. Art and literature all too frequently reflect the same tendances.

And since the spirit of Christ has ceased to reign, in public and in private men are flouting the moral laws of God, and some of the worst abominations of ancient paganism are becoming matters of every-day life. Moreover, be it remembered, modern paganism is worse than that of the ancient world, in that the former knows what it does  as the latter did not. There is now an intense positive hatred of Jesus Christ in the militant atheist, which differs in kind from the attitude of the fiercest Roman or Eastern persecutor: If I had not come and spoken to them... if I had not done among them the works that no other man hath done, they would not have sin: but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father." (John xv. 22,24)

Ever as practical as she is supernatural, the Church is not content with merely deploring the evil, nor even with counteracting it by sound teaching. She would also make definite reparation to the divine majesty thus denied and defied; to him whose royalty is slighted and insulted. Something must be done by those who, in a measure, understand and love, in border to atone for those who do not. "To repair the crime of lees-divinity, which denies God's rights over the human society who's author he is, we must exalt Jesus Christ as King over all individuals, families, and peoples. If his universal royalty be proclaimed and his reign in society recognized, one of the principal evils of the modern world - the secularizing of public and private life - will be attached at its roots." (L'Amour de Dieu et de la Croix de Jesus, P. Garrigou-Lagrance, O.P.) Hence we have the special exhortation of the Vicar of Christ, and the institution of the feast of his divine Kingship.

"To this end nothing would serve better than the institution of a special feast in honour of the Kingship of Christ. For the people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion, far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any pronouncement, however weighty, of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few, and those the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year - in fact for ever. The Church's teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man's nature... We have commanded its observance on Sunday, in order that not only the clergy may perform their duty by saying Mass and reciting the Office, but that the laity too,  free from their daily tasks, may in a spirit of holy joy give ample testimony of their obedience and subjection to Christ ... that they may so order their lives as to be worthy, faithful, and obedient subjects of the Divine King." (Encycl. Quas Primas).

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