Jesus Christ is for all eternity King of the Universe! However, this Jubilee Year 2025 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the creation of the feast day of Christ the King by Pope Pius XI in 1925, which was also a jubilee year for the church. The pope promulgated this feast day in his encyclical letter Quas Primas (Latin for “In the first”), a letter which has much wisdom even for our times today. On this centennial anniversary, I invite all of us to read the document that can be found on the Vatican’s website. I also copy the link at the bottom of this article. The pope in the document outlines the need to create this feast day due to the growing secularism (i.e., society’s rejection of God) in the public sphere, especially in the wake of the first world war.
Many of the issues facing society 100 years ago are quite similar, if not identical, to that of today. Today also there is a growing trend that faith is something very private and should not be talked about in everyday conversations. This feast day, however, invites us, reminds us, and compels us to boldly live out our faith in the public sphere. In the sacrament of Baptism, we are anointed with Sacred Chrism oil on our heads and this makes us sharers in these three functions of Christ as priest, prophet, and king. Living out our faith in the public is how we fulfill that kingly dimension of our Baptism. The documents in paragraph thus invites us to think of many ways to bring in the public and suggests that “through sermons preached at meetings and in churches, by public adoration of the Blessed Sacrament exposed and by solemn procession, men and women unite in paying homage to Christ, whom God has given them for their King.”
On the same day, the Church has also declared this Sunday as World Youth Day. Many of us have heard of World Youth Day as a gathering of youth around the world with the pope every 3 to 4 years. However, on a yearly basis, World Youth Day is celebrated this day in all of the dioceses around the world. The significance of this connection between the two cannot be understated. The youth of today have an immense impact on how Jesus is proclaimed as King and Sovereign Lord of the Universe tomorrow. The youth of today are the one’s looking for work, apprenticing, studying in our schools, colleges, and universities. They are the parents, educators, doctors, and scholars of tomorrow. The youth of today have never been more connected with the age of social media. With that however, they have never been more susceptible to the trappings of the secular culture. We therefore must pray for them and encourage them by our actions to always proudly profess Jesus as King in all areas of their lives, even when it can be difficult or even unpopular.
I quote here a very popular hymn for this feast day: “Crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon his throne. Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own. Awake, my soul, and sing of him who died for thee, and hail him as thy matchless king through all eternity.” Let us ask Christ the King to awaken our souls and to always sing his praises always and everywhere, even out in the public!
Quas Primas: https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_11121925_quas-primas.html
Fr. Kevin