You may be forgiven for thinking we’d always been celebrating the Feast of Christ the King. The reality is it’s a relatively new feast, only added to the liturgical year in 1925 by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Quas Primas (In the first).
Initially, the feast was celebrated on 31 October, however it was moved by Pope Paul VI in his 1969 motu proprio Mysterii Paschalis, to the last Sunday of the liturgical year, emphasising its importance:
“The revision of the liturgical year and the norms which follow logically from this restoration have no other purpose than to permit the faithful to communicate in a more intense way, through faith, hope and love, in “the whole mystery of Christ which she unfolds within the cycle of a year.”(9)
While we may not have celebrated the Feast of Christ the King until the 20th century, the concept of Christ as King of his eternal kingdom goes right back to the Gospels;
“The Christ of God, the Chosen One, the King” (Lk 23:35,37).
Christ the King is depicted in this medieval ceiling fresco in Luz, France. The image shows Christ holding the world and surrounded by four celestial beasts of the Apocalypse.