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While we might think that this Sunday we celebrate the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, or the 30th in the in Novus Ordo, in the Vetus Ordo this Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King.
As always in these essays we try to get some context, to help us understand better the content of our Mass reading or – this time – prayer.
Papa Ratti, Pius XI (+1939) was elected to the See of Peter in 1922. Industrialization and imperialism, aggravated by political alliances, had ignited the hideous World War I, with its trench warfare, use of modern artillery, and weaponized gas. Many millions died and were wounded by the time it wound down in 1918. Then, from 1918-1920 the Spanish Flu swept the planet. Pope Ratti’s immediate predecessor, Benedict XV, had named Ratti as his diplomatic representative in Poland where he remained boldly working also as delegate to Russia amidst conflict with the Soviets, even refusing to flee as all the other diplomats did during the Polish-Soviet War (1919-21). He understood the dangers of Communism.
When Benedict XV died unexpectedly of pneumonia, Ratti was Cardinal Archbishop of Milan. He was elected on the 14th ballot in the longest conclave of the 20th century. He probably also took the longest to accept. The story goes that when he was asked by the Dean of the College if he accepted, he left them all in silence as he pondered for several minutes. Later, a Cardinal quipped, that they had put him through the 14 Stations and then left Him on Calvary. He took the regnal name of Pius and the motto “Pax Christi in regno Christi”.
Pius XI’s first encyclical was Ubi arcano in 1922 about “the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ”, his own motto. Papal encyclicals are often programmatic, signaling something Pope’s hope to emphasize. In Ubi arcano he observed that World War I had not brought peace and that new wars threatened. He deplored the conversion of churches to secular use and pointed to concupiscence as the root of many societal ills. Only under the Kingship of Christ would there be true peace.
The theme of the Kingship of Christ was further stressed in his 1925 encyclical Quas primas. With this encyclical Pius established the Feast of Christ the King, fixing it on the last Sunday of October, a month which Communists had hijacked for the exaltation of their “permanent revolution”.
“Permanent revolution” is the strategy in Communist praxis that goals should be pursued without compromise with the opposition. Some might point to a possible parallel with the now seemingly endless “walking together” in October after October after October of trying to create a stable process in the Church of re-doing pretty much everything (which seems like a not inaccurate definition of “revolution”). Create listening groups to isolate voices which might run counter to the determined ends and issue concluding statements.
By the way, the Latin for “revolution” is res novae… “new things”. “New” was perceived by the ancient Romans as bad by default.
In any event, in choosing this last Sunday in October, Pius XI also placed the Feast of Christ the King immediately before the Feast of All Saints and the month of November which dove-tails with Advent and its emphasis on the Second Coming of Christ. Through Christ celebrated as King, we are swept by Mother Church into an intense liturgical reflection on the Four Last Things, Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell. In other words, she gives us a salutary season for getting our priorities straight.
Pope Pius stressed that Christ has dominion and authority over all created things. Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Rev 19:16). Hence, Pius said that both individuals and whole societies are obliged to submit to Christ as their King.
When Christ does not reign, where Christ has been rejected, people are likely to be reduced to depersonalized widgets, disposable by the powerful in the charnel house of atheism. You know the harrowing image used by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (+1924) about the necessity of the deaths even of millions for the sake of the socialist objective: “You have to break eggs in order to make an omelet!”
The Collect prayers for the Feast of Christ the King in the Vetus Ordo and in the Novus Ordo differ dramatically. The differences could be a good example of the major differences between the two rites. Since I am limited by my space and your time, I’ll just post super-literal translations rather than the Latin and official translations: First, the Vetus:
Almighty eternal God, who in Your beloved Son, the King of the whole universe, desired to reestablish all things: propitiously grant; that all the families of the nations, separated by the wound of sin, may be brought under His most sweet sovereignty.
Nations. Here and now. Note that Christ must be acknowledged as King over all human institutions.
The Novus Ordo version:
Almighty eternal God, who desired to renew all things in Your beloved Son, the King of the universe, graciously grant that the whole of creation, having been freed from servitude, may zealously serve Your majesty and praise You greatly without end.
No question that Christ is the King of the universe. The concept of sin is not explicit but is implied by servitude. The big difference? The reference to nations, the secular sphere, is gone.
Week in and week out in the cycle of the Church’s liturgical year, the side-by-side comparison of the proper prayers of Mass, those that change according to the day of the year, shows a change of content.
Change how we pray, change what we believe. Change those and you change how we live privately and how we engage in the public square.
What can we do? Channeling my inner Sam Gamgee, as my ol’gaffer used to say “It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish.” We must approach the challenge with patient perseverance and a brick-by-brick attitude.
We might take a cue from the admonition in the Postcommunion prayer in the Vetus Ordo for the Feast of Christ the King (again, my translation):
Fed with this immortal nourishment, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that we who glory to fight under the standard of Christ the King, may forever reign with Him on the heavenly throne.
Note the imagery, which firmly reminds us that we are members of the Church Militant.
And now the Novus Ordo Post communion:
O Lord, we entreat you, may your sacramental mysteries perfect in us that which they contain, with the result that what we are now performing in outward appearance, we may grasp in the truth of things.
We are our rites.
It is on days like the Feast of Christ the King that I most reflect on the difference between the Novus Ordo and the Vetus. Some criticize the Vetus Ordo for being too dour, stressing sin and penance propitiation and guilt, while lauding the Novus Ordo’s forward look towards eschatological joy at the end in Heaven with Christ the King, when God will finally be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:18). There is nothing wrong with emphasizing eschatological joy. In fact, the Vetus Ordo does that too. However, the Vetus Ordo makes it clearer how to attain the joy of Heaven in a way that compilers of the Novus systematically diminished in their editing out of its prayers those negative ideas. Perhaps they were, after yet another hideous war, being overly optimistic about man.
In his 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo anno, Pius XI wrote that “no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist”. Pius goes on to say,
All these admonitions which have been renewed and confirmed by Our solemn authority must likewise be applied to a certain new kind of socialist activity, hitherto little known but now carried on among many socialist groups. It devotes itself above all to the training of the mind and character. Under the guise of affection it tries in particular to attract children of tender age and win them to itself, although it also embraces the whole population in its scope in order finally to produce true socialists who would shape human society to the tenets of Socialism.
Today we witness anew the surging tendrils of socialism wedging into every possible fissure in our ever-fracturing society. After decades of propaganda in academia, the ideologues have succeeded in producing a couple of generations who know nothing about civics or history. They stifled student’s innate curiosity and ability to reason. Through relentless social programming and punishment of independent use of common sense they produced obedient little parrots in the public square.
There is an Enemy who works relentlessly to strip Christ the King from the thrones of our hearts. He is the “prince of this world” (John 14:30). The Hell-prince works at every possible level to undermine the Kingship of Christ in this world. We are warred upon relentlessly. Christ’s “social kingship” is blotted out by Hell and its human agents. We must soldier on under the banner of the King depending on all the salutary gifts with which our King has endowed the Church.
Here is an action item for this traditional Christ the King Sunday.
In Quas primas Pius XI requested that the Act of Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus be recited publicly on the Feast. We can gain a plenary indulgence by doing so.
Be sure to find a church or chapel where this will be done on Sunday and take part. Go to confession. Gain the indulgence. Firm up your loyalty to Christ, King not of hidden hearts only, but of every street, home and nation on earth.
And because we are all in this together, perhaps invite someone who has never been to the Traditional Latin Mass to go with you.
Never underestimate the power of your invitation. With the prevenient grace of the Holy Spirit your invitations can change lives.
