Feast of Christ the King



Today, November 24th, is the solemnity of Christ the King.


The Feast of Christ the King was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925 as an antidote to secularism, a way of life which leaves God out of man's thinking and living and organizes his life as if God did not exist. The feast is intended to proclaim in a striking and effective manner Christ's royalty over individuals, families, society, governments, and nations.

Today's Mass establishes the titles for Christ's royalty over men: 1) Christ is God, the Creator of the universe and hence wields a supreme power over all things; "All things were created by Him"; 2) Christ is our Redeemer, He purchased us by His precious Blood, and made us His property and possession; 3) Christ is Head of the Church, "holding in all things the primacy"; 4) God bestowed upon Christ the nations of the world as His special possession and dominion.

Today's Mass also describes the qualities of Christ's kingdom. This kingdom is: 1) supreme, extending not only to all people but also to their princes and kings; 2) universal, extending to all nations and to all places; 3) eternal, for "The Lord shall sit a King forever"; 4) spiritual, Christ's "kingdom is not of this world".

~ Rt. Rev. Msgr. Rudolph G. Bandas

The Second Coming of Christ and the General Judgment

Our Lord Jesus Christ the King [C]
II Samuel 5:1-3  +  Colossians 1:12-20  +  Luke 23:35-43
November 24, 2013

We do not know in what year “the end of the world” will come.  But that event is what we celebrate on this feast of Christ the King:  the end of the world, when Jesus Christ will come down to earth a second time and make a final judgment of all people.  If we try to imagine in our minds what these events will look like, we might think of a lot of thunder and lightning, volcanoes erupting and the sun standing still.  In the midst of such cataclysmic events, we might imagine that people would be running for their lives in utter fear.

But keep in mind that for 99.9+% of mankind, the end of our world will not come at the end of time.  For most of us, the end of our world will come at the moment of our death.  At that moment we will appear before God who will judge our lives in particular.  And for most of us, the moment of our death will be a fairly simple event:  we may not know now when, where, or how it will occur, but it will likely be a pretty understated occurrence, without any peals of thunder or flashes of lightning.
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