Question about the feast of Christ the King

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If this isn’t in the right forum, please move it.

My question has to do with the liturgical calendar–originally, wasn’t the Feast of Christ the King celebrated on the last Sunday in October? So, if the Sundays of Advent started 4 weeks before Christmas (more or less), what was celebrated on the Sundays in November, those between the end of October and the start of Advent?

The answer will probably be something very obvious that I’m not seeing, but I know someone out in CAF land will be able to help. (In case anyone is wondering, I wasn’t a Catholic back then, so I don’t know.)
 
I’m thinking that maybe back then they didn’t celebrate the Feast of Christ the King as the end of the liturgical year, like, it was just a feast in honor of Christ the King and it didn’t end off the liturgical year. I’m thinking maybe between the end of October and the beginning of Advent they had Ordinary Time.
 
Christ the King is a fairly late feast. It was started only in the 20th century as an answer to Reformation Sunday.

In the Western tradition, the theme of the Sunday; Next before Advent has generally been the return of Christ and the last things. Dies irae was originally composed for this Sunday, and NOT for Requiems.

So it could be considered appropriate to move this modern feast to the Sunday that commemorated the final consummation of this age and the opening of the Age to Come.
 
This is sort of irrelevant, but in my bulletin today, it said the feast was started in 1925 to reaffirm, as the world was falling into totalitarianism and the revering of states, that Christ is our King and countries cannot do any of the things that He can. Some daily trivia:D
 
bpbasilphx said:
Christ the King is a fairly late feast. It was started only in the 20th century as an answer to Reformation Sunday.
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My understanding was that the feast was instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI, as a response to a rise in nationalism and secularism…not that both can’t be true, since putting the feast on “Reformation Sunday” was unlikely to have been accidental. At any rate, when the calendar was revised in 1960, this was classifed as a feast of the first class. That would be how it would have appeared in a liturgical calendar 1962.
bpbasilphx said:
In the Western tradition, the theme of the Sunday; Next before Advent has generally been the return of Christ and the last things. Dies irae was originally composed for this Sunday, and NOT for Requiems.

So it could be considered appropriate to move this modern feast to the Sunday that commemorated the final consummation of this age and the opening of the Age to Come.
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I think you explain the thinking exactly.

It was in 1969 that Pope Paul VI gave it the current title, The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ King of the Universe, and a new date, the last Sunday of the liturgical year. Assigning the feast the highest rank, that of solemnity, and choosing the last Sunday of the year for its celebration was intended to make the eschatological importance of the observance clear. Within the historical context you describe, that may have been better understood at the time than it is now.

We had a nice homily today, noting how Jesus repeatedly rejected the secular concept of what his kingship meant, and pointing out that since we were born to be his disciples, we were also born for the single reason that Our Lord was: to testify to God’s truth, in our every word and action.
 
Christ the King *is *a fairly recent addition to the Liturgical Calendar.

It was established via Pope Pius XI’s 1925 encyclical Quas Primas with the idea of combating the growing secularism that he observed. He also hoped that the idea of Christ as king might encourage people who were worried by the rise of totalitarian governments.

Under the old calendar the terminology “Ordinary Time” was not *officially *used (although it may have been the common usage) and instead those Sundays were enumerated as Sundays after Epiphany or Sundays after Pentecost. Christ the King fell within the Sundays after Pentecost.
 
Ahh! It was the Sunday to reaffirm…that would explain today’s rite of acceptance…of which I was not a part of :(:(:(😦 (I bawled like a baby for those folks, though).
 
Beachcomber said:
My question has to do with the liturgical calendar–originally, wasn’t the Feast of Christ the King celebrated on the last Sunday in October?
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Yes. It was originally celebrated on the last Sunday in October. And it still is in parishes which off the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.
Beachcomber said:
So, if the Sundays of Advent started 4 weeks before Christmas (more or less), what was celebrated on the Sundays in November, those between the end of October and the start of Advent?
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Short answer: The Sundays after Pentecost

Much longer answer:

Prior to 1970, and therefore still today in parishes using the 1962 Roman Missal, the Liturgical Year essentially looked like this:

ADVENT - CHRISTMASTIDE - TIME AFTER EPIPHANY - SEPTUAGESIMA - LENT - EASTERTIDE - TIME AFTER PENTECOST

The Feast of Christ the King, officially called The Feast of the Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ, was celebrated on the last Sunday in October, taking the place of that particular Sunday After Pentecost. I really like the placement of the Feast on this date. What you have is the Feast of Christ the King almost immediately followed by All Saints Day and All Souls Day. For me it really seems to reinforce the belief that it is necessary to recognize Jesus Christ as King right here on earth and right now - before we go to our eternal reward. Maybe this was the reasoning of Pope Pius XI for choosing this date:

Therefore by Our Apostolic Authority We institute the Feast of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ to be observed yearly throughout the whole world on the last Sunday of the month of October - the Sunday, that is, which immediately precedes the Feast of All Saints.
Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas 28

The Last Sunday After Pentecost was (and in those parishes using the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite today is) concerned with the 2nd coming of Christ. The Epsitle Reading is Colossians 1:9-14 and the Gospel Reading (Matthew 24:13-25) was taken from the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24-25).

With the introduction of the 1970 Roman Missal, the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, on the 1st Sunday of Advent (November 30) 1969, the Liturgical Year was changed to:

ADVENT - CHRISTMAS - ORDINARY TIME - LENT - EASTER - ORDINARY TIME

Time After Epiphany, Septuagesima ( a 3 week preparation for Lent), and the Time After Pentecost became “Ordinary Time”. And the Feast of Christ the King, now officially called The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King, was shifted to the end of the Liturgical Year - the 34th and Last Sunday in Ordinary Time.

And what the Church has essentially done is combine the Feast of Christ the King with what used to be the Last Sunday After Pentesost (now, the Last Sunday in Ordinary Time). The 2nd Reading for the Feast of Christ the King, the 34th and Last Sunday in Ordinary Time, in Year C is Colossians 1:12-20, which overlaps the Reading for Last Sunday After Pentecost in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. And the Gospel Reading in Year A is Matthew 25:31-46, which is also a part of the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24-25) and concerns the 2nd Coming of Christ.

James
 
Now I know. A big thanks to everyone who answered my question. I feel fully informed. 👍
 
Beachcomber said:
If this isn’t in the right forum, please move it.

My question has to do with the liturgical calendar–originally, wasn’t the Feast of Christ the King celebrated on the last Sunday in October? So, if the Sundays of Advent started 4 weeks before Christmas (more or less), what was celebrated on the Sundays in November, those between the end of October and the start of Advent?

The answer will probably be something very obvious that I’m not seeing, but I know someone out in CAF land will be able to help. (In case anyone is wondering, I wasn’t a Catholic back then, so I don’t know.)
Click to expand...
The Feast of Christ the King was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 to strengthen the faithful against the emerging nationalism and secularism of the time; that, Christ was and is still King of this world and the next and all others are fleeting and false. In Pope John XXIII’s 1960 revision of the Calendar, the date and title remained the same.

In 1969, Pope Paul VI gave the celebration a new title: “D. N. Iesu Christi universorum Regis” (Our Lord Jesus Christ King of the Universe). He also gave it a new date: the last Sunday in the liturgical year, before a new year begins with the First Sunday in Advent, the earliest date for which is the 27th of November. The original Feastday was celebrated on the last Sunday in October.
 
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