For the feast day of Christ the King, which was a couple of Sundays ago (November 22nd), we read the encyclical, Quas primas, by Pius XI, written in 1925, on the institution of the Feast of Christ the King. Here are some of my thoughts. You can read the encyclical here.
First, Pius lays out the scriptural justification of the title and feast:
8. Do we not read
throughout the Scriptures that Christ is the King? He it is that shall come out
of Jacob to rule,[3] who has been set by the Father as king over Sion, his holy
mount, and shall have the Gentiles for his inheritance, and the utmost parts of
the earth for his possession.[4] In the nuptial hymn, where the future King of
Israel is hailed as a most rich and powerful monarch, we read: "Thy
throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the scepter of thy kingdom is a scepter of
2 righteousness."[5] There are many similar passages, but there is one in
which Christ is even more clearly indicated. Here it is foretold that his
kingdom will have no limits, and will be enriched with justice and peace:
"in his days shall justice spring up, and abundance of peace...And he
shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the
earth."[6]
9. The testimony of the
Prophets is even more abundant. That of Isaias is well known: "For a child
is born to us and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his
shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, God the mighty,
the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace. His empire shall be
multiplied, and there shall be no end of peace. He shall sit upon the throne of
David and upon his kingdom; to establish it and strengthen it with judgment and
with justice, from henceforth and for ever."[7] With Isaias the other
Prophets are in agreement. So Jeremias foretells the "just seed" that
shall rest from the house of David - the Son of David that shall reign as king,
"and shall be wise, and shall execute judgment and justice in the
earth."[8] So, too, Daniel, who announces the kingdom that the God of
heaven shall found, "that shall never be destroyed, and shall stand for
ever."[9] And again he says: "I beheld, therefore, in the vision of
the night, and, lo! one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven. And
he came even to the Ancient of days: and they presented him before him. And he
gave him power and glory and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues
shall serve him. His power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken
away, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed."[10] The prophecy of Zachary
concerning the merciful King "riding upon an ass and upon a colt the foal
of an ass" entering Jerusalem as "the just and savior," amid the
acclamations of the multitude,[11] was recognized as fulfilled by the holy
evangelists themselves.
10. This same doctrine of
the Kingship of Christ which we have found in the Old Testament is even more
clearly taught and confirmed in the New. The Archangel, announcing to the
Virgin that she should bear a Son, says that "the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of David his father, and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for
ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."[12]
11. Moreover, Christ
himself speaks of his own kingly authority: in his last discourse, speaking of
the rewards and punishments that will be the eternal lot of the just and the
damned; in his reply to the Roman magistrate, who asked him publicly whether he
were a king or not; after his resurrection, when giving to his Apostles the
mission of teaching and baptizing all nations, he took the opportunity to call
himself king,[13] confirming the title publicly,[14] and solemnly proclaimed
that all power was given him in heaven and on earth.[15] These words can only
be taken to indicate the greatness of his power, the infinite extent of his
kingdom. What wonder, then, that he whom St. John calls the "prince of the
kings of the earth"[16] appears in the Apostle's vision of the future as
he who "hath on his garment and on his thigh written 'King of kings and
Lord of lords!'."[17] It is Christ whom the Father "hath appointed
heir of all things";[18] "for he must reign until at the end of the
world he hath put all his enemies under the feet of God and the
Father."[19]
Paragraphs
ten and eleven make the case for Christ as king from New Testament, but what
really makes the argument solid is the justification presented from the Old
Testament prophets, mostly in paragraph nine.
Let me quote P9 in its entirety.
9. The testimony of the
Prophets is even more abundant. That of Isaias is well known: "For a child
is born to us and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his
shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, God the mighty,
the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace. His empire shall be
multiplied, and there shall be no end of peace. He shall sit upon the throne of
David and upon his kingdom; to establish it and strengthen it with judgment and
with justice, from henceforth and for ever."[7] With Isaias the other
Prophets are in agreement. So Jeremias foretells the "just seed" that
shall rest from the house of David - the Son of David that shall reign as king,
"and shall be wise, and shall execute judgment and justice in the
earth."[8] So, too, Daniel, who announces the kingdom that the God of
heaven shall found, "that shall never be destroyed, and shall stand for
ever."[9] And again he says: "I beheld, therefore, in the vision of
the night, and, lo! one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven. And
he came even to the Ancient of days: and they presented him before him. And he
gave him power and glory and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues
shall serve him. His power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken
away, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed."[10] The prophecy of Zachary
concerning the merciful King "riding upon an ass and upon a colt the foal
of an ass" entering Jerusalem as "the just and savior," amid the
acclamations of the multitude,[11] was recognized as fulfilled by the holy
evangelists themselves.
Those numbers are footnotes, which I’m not going to provide but you can find them in the text. Christ is the son of David, and perhaps more importantly the fulfillment of the typology presented in the Old Testament. As David is the great King of Israel, Christ stemming from David’s lineage is the great King of heaven and earth.
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I
found paragraph 18 to be extremely powerful.
It starts off with a quote from Pope Leo XIII.
18. Thus the empire of our
Redeemer embraces all men. To use the words of Our immortal predecessor, Pope
Leo XIII: "His empire includes not only Catholic nations, not only
baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led
astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those
who are outside the Christian faith; so that truly the whole of mankind is
subject to the power of Jesus Christ."[28]
So
Christ is not just the King of Roman Catholics or the King of Christians. He is the King of all. Pope Leo XIII must be thinking of Paul’s
Epistle to the Philippians:
…though he was in
the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form
of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on
a cross. Because of this, God
greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every
name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of
those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue
confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:6-10)
When
we refer to Jesus Christ is Lord, we do mean king. A king is the highest lord of a nation, and
Jesus is “King of Kings, Lord of Lords.”
The paragraph continues.
Nor is there any
difference in this matter between the individual and the family or the State;
for 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. "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other
name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved."[29] He is the
author of happiness and true prosperity for every man and for every nation.
"For a nation is happy when its citizens are happy. What else is a nation
but a number of men living in concord?"[30]
Christ
as King then is at the crux of salvation of the individual, the prosperity of
society, and the happiness of people. It
is through the authority of His divinity that upholds everything. That’s powerful stuff. The paragraph continues, now focused on the
responsibility of earthly kings.
If, therefore, the rulers
of nations wish to preserve their authority, to promote and increase the
prosperity of their countries, they will not neglect the public duty of
reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ. What We said at the beginning of
Our Pontificate concerning the decline of public authority, and the lack of
respect for the same, is equally true at the present day. "With God and
Jesus Christ," we said, "excluded from political life, with authority
derived not from God but from man, the very basis of that authority has been
taken away, because the chief reason of the distinction between ruler and
subject has been eliminated. The result is that human society is tottering to
its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid foundation."[31]
Earthly
rulers then (and I would imagine that would include today’s presidents and
legislators) must act in “reverence and obedience” to Christ the King in order
to derive legitimate authority.
Otherwise illegitimate authority leads to an unstable society. That last sentence, a quote I think from one
of Pius XI’s earlier encyclical, deserves repeating: “The result is that human
society is tottering to its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid
foundation."
If Pope Pius XI wrote that in the 1920’s, can you imagine what he would say today? Society without Christ, let alone as Christ as King, has no foundation. Since the 1920’s society has tottered and fallen several times. We are no better today. Actually we are worse.
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The
first sentence paragraph 19 I think sums up why acknowledging Christ as king is
so important: “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life,
that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real
liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony.” But why actually have a feast day of Christ
the King? Pius acknowledged earlier that
Christ has been revered as king since Christ walked on earth. What does having a feast day accomplish? He explain in paragraph 23.
21. That these blessings
may be abundant and lasting in Christian society, it is necessary that the
kingship of our Savior should be as widely as possible recognized and
understood, and to the end nothing would serve better than the institution of a
special feast in honor of the Kingship of Christ. For 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
official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements
usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach
them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year - in fact,
forever. 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.
Man is composed of body and soul, and he needs these external festivities so
that the sacred rites, in all their beauty and variety, may stimulate him to
drink more deeply of the fountain of God's teaching, that he may make it a part
of himself, and use it with profit for his spiritual life.
In other words, it takes a feast day to promulgate the word, to instruct those not learned, and to work the notion into the rhythm of life. It takes a feast day to transfer it from an intellectual concept into the heart and soul. It becomes a spiritual concept as well as an intellectual one.
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With
paragraph 30 Pius outlines the expectations of instituting the Christ the King
feast day.
30. We would now,
Venerable Brethren, in closing this letter, briefly enumerate the blessings
which We hope and pray may accrue to the Church, to society, and to each one of
the faithful, as a result of the public veneration of the Kingship of Christ.
And then he provides three paragraphs, each with an expectation of a benefit. Let me just sum them in a sentence each:
Par 31: By honoring the dignity of Christ with the feast, men will in turn respect and give due freedom to the Church from the power of the state.
Par 32: By creating the feast nations will be reminded that their ultimate allegiance and obedience is to Christ.
Par 33: The faithful will through the feast will gain great strength and allow Christ to reign in their hearts.
As I think over these three, I have to say society has roundly failed in the first two. Across the world countries have limited and denied religious freedom, especially to the Catholic Church. Look at the Covid restrictions of recent times on religious services, of which they have not been denied to other forms of gatherings. In fact I was struck by this sentence in paragraph 31: “The State is bound to extend similar freedom to the orders and communities of religious of either sex, who give most valuable help to the Bishops of the Church by laboring for the extension and the establishment of the kingdom of Christ.” Ha! Think of the Obama administration’s limiting of the freedoms to the Sisters of the Poor! Even in this country we have been limiting religious freedoms.
And as to nations having obedience to Christ, well the almost one hundred years now since the encyclical we have not seen it. Well, shortly after the encyclical we had the Second World War, the Cold War, and now the rise of terrorism. There have not been too many nations since the encyclical that have been obedient to Christ. Of course in due time the work of grace from this encyclical can change hearts and the world. I pray that it be so.
As to strengthening the hearts of the faithful, I can tell you it had a wonderful effect on me. I had not known the details of Christ the King feast. Indeed, it has enlarged my understanding of Christ in my heart. What a great encyclical.
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My final Goodreads review.
At only eleven pages, this is a great short read. Why do encyclicals now have to be a hundred to two hundred pages? Short and elegant is beautiful and clear, and Quas primas is certainly that. In English, the title translates roughly to “That Which is First,” and what is first is Christ kingship. The encyclical by Pope Pius XI in 1925 established the feast on the last Sunday in October (later moved to the final Sunday of the Church year, the Sunday before Advent) of Christ the King.
The encyclical acknowledges that Christ as King is at the crux of salvation of the individual, the prosperity of society, and the happiness of people. It is through the authority of His divinity that upholds everything. From that essential premise, earthly rulers then have an obligation to acknowledge Christ as their ultimate guide, and only by such allegiance can they derive their true authority. “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony.” Acknowledging Christ is king is the first step of allowing Christ to reign in one’s heart.
Establishing the feast day, then to Pius, is critical to acknowledging the graces that flow from such reverence. It takes a feast day to promulgate the word, to instruct those not learned, and to work the notion into the rhythm of life. It takes a feast day to transfer it from an intellectual concept into the heart and soul. It becomes a spiritual concept as well as an intellectual one.
Pius
hoped the feast would strengthen the hearts of the faithful, and I can tell you
it had a wonderful effect on me. I had
not known the details of Christ the King feast.
Indeed, it has enlarged my understanding of Christ in my heart. What a great encyclical.
