Feast Of Christ The King Or Feast Of The Reign Of Christ

This celebration acknowledges the lordship of Jesus Christ over all of creation. This service is always celebrated at the end of the Pentecost season on the last Sunday before Advent begins. The Feast of Christ the King is a new festal celebration established for the Roman Catholic church by Pope Pius XI in 1925. Although Epiphany, Easter, and Ascension are already feasts of the King, Pius XI felt the need for an additional one to combat the secularization of the world and of society. Working with the older Catholic notion of a Christendom in which God rules the world through the church, Pius XI envisioned Christ the King Sunday as a proclamation for governments and institutions to submit to Christ. Since Vatican II, the shift in Catholic thought, and thus the shift on the readings, prayers, and themes of Christ the King Sunday, is toward the cosmic and eschatological character of Christ's reign over the world. This emphasis fits well the theme of Christ's second coming in the earl…