The Last Sunday in October – Tu Rex gloriæ, Christe!

In the traditional Roman calendar this is the feast of Christ the King. The feast is one of the newer feasts of Our Lord, being instituted by Pius XI in 1925. The encyclical Quas Primas which proclaimed the new feast can be found here.

This is, in a manner of speaking, the feast of the social teaching of the Catholic Church. In paragraph 32 of Quas Primas Pius XI writes

Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ. It will call to their minds the thought of the last judgment, wherein Christ, who has been cast out of public life, despised, neglected and ignored, will most severely avenge these insults; for his kingly dignity demands that the State should take account of the commandments of God and of Christian principles, both in making laws and in administering justice, and also in providing for the young a sound moral education.

Not much wiggle-room here for the “personally-opposed-but” crowd.

In the Pauline rite (which celebrates the feast of Christ the King on the last Sunday before Advent) this is the 30th Sunday per annum.

In the sanctoral cycle the 27th of October is the feast of the 15th century Dominican nun, Blessed Antonia Gainaci who reformed her convent of St. Catherine in Ferrara.

It is also the feast of the 4th century Apostle of the Abyssinians, St. Frumentius.

I have already set my watch back an hour so there is at least a fighting chance that I will make it to Mass on time rather than an hour early.