CHRIST THE KING
(Last Sunday of October)
Pope Pius XI, in instituting the feast of the Kingship of Christ, desired to make solemn proclamation of the social dominion of our Lord Jesus Christ over the world. Christ, the King of souls and consciences, of intellects and will, is also the King of families and cities, peoples and nations. He is King of the whole universe. As Pius XI showed in his Encyclical Quas Primas of December 11, 1925, secularism is the direct denial of this Kingship of Christ. By organizing social life as if God did not exist it leads to the apostasy of the masses and the ruin of society.
The whole of today's Mass and Office are a solemn assertion of the universal royalty of Christ against the great heresy of our days which is secularism. Occurring as it does on the last Sunday of October, towards the end of the liturgical year and just before the feast of All Saints, the feast of the Kingship of Christ appears as the crowing glory of all the mysteries of the life of Christ and as an anticipation in time, of the external royalty which He exercises over all the elect in the glory of heaven. The great reality of Christianity is the Risen Christ reigning in all the glory of His victory among the elect, who are the fruits of his triumph.
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