Today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, more commonly referred to as Christ the King. This feast always occurs on the last Sunday of the liturgical year. It’s a fairly new feast day in the liturgical calendar, being instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925.
There’s a lot of history in the songs we have today. We open our celebration singing “To Jesus Christ, Our Sovereign King” which has a centuries-old history with the Catholic Church. This text is from the Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat (Christ the Victor, Christ the Ruler, Christ the Redeem-er) chant from the 8th century. The tune, “Ich Glaub an Gott” (translation from the German: I believe in God) is taken from the Mainz Gesangbuch (hymnal) in 1870. Mainz is in western Germany and is personally very special to me as it was where I studied for a year doing graduate work in Catholic Church Music at the Universität Mainz. I was blessed to have attended the Mainz Dom (the Cathedral of Mainz) every week-end, played on the immense organ on occasion, and sang from the ‘Mainz Gesangbuch’ – the very one that this hymn was origi-nally published in (granted, a few editions later!). The history in that place was awe-inspiring. Once again, it shows the depth of the history of our Catholic (which means ‘universal’) church. For those of you who have visited Rome, this text is also important. Do you remember where this text is displayed? For those who went with me in the choir in 2019, we even sang a piece with this title in St. Peter’s on Sunday at Mass. It is engraved on the obelisk in St. Peter’s Square. Little known fact is that there is a piece of the true Cross in the bronze cross that tops this obelisk.
Back to our Sunday at Prince of Peace now! Our closing song “Crown Him with Many Crowns” is set to the tune DIADEMARA (taken from a Greek word for ‘crowns’), originally published in 1868 in England. It has been published in 448 hymnals through-out the world, and that doesn’t count how many editions of each hymnal it’s been in! It’s sung in almost all Christian
denominations throughout the world. It truly makes this text come to life when you think about it:
Crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon his throne;
All kingdoms of the earth resound in praise of him alone.
Yes, all kingdoms of the earth resound in praise of him alone – all in this one hymn!
A little review about the liturgical calendar in the Catholic Church: the liturgical year begins with Advent, which is four Sundays prior to Christmas on December 25. Christmas is a non-movable feast – which means it is always celebrated on December 25, versus Easter which is a movable feast. All of the dates are figured based on other dates: Advent is four weeks before Christmas (so Advent is counted backwards from Christmas); Easter is calculated as the first Sunday after the first ecclesiastical full moon (which generally means that is calculated and based on science versus one being actually spotted with the naked eye, since cloud cover can often distort the view) after the spring equinox (on March 20). Lent then goes back 6 Sundays prior to that (5 Sundays of Lent plus Palm Sunday), and Ash Wednesday is the Wednesday before the 1st Sunday of Lent.
How Ordinary Time Sundays are figured are much too complicated for me to explain as they are counted forward from the period after Christmas, but also backwards from the last Sunday prior to Advent which is always Christ the King.
Our Sundays are divided into 3 Cycles: A (which we are just ending), B (which is what we will be begin next Sunday) and then C (near December of 2021). Each liturgical year has its own designated readings and prayers to be followed. The weekdays are divided into just 2 cycles using Roman Numerals: I (odd years - 2021) and II (even years - 2020). They likewise have their own readings and prayers particular to each specific day. Each Diocese/Archdiocese publishes a small book each year called an Ordo that tells everyone what feast is celebrated on which day, and which readings/prayers are to be used. It also puts in all local, national and universal feast days that can be celebrated. All in all, today we end our current Liturgical Year, Cycle A with the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, and next Sunday we begin the First Sunday of Advent in Cycle B.