O Night Divine

Solemnity of Christ the King

Lord, you give us Christ, the King of all creation

as food for everlating life.

Help us to live by his Gospel

and bring us to the joy of his kingsdom 

where he lives and reigns for ever and ever.

(Magnificat, November 2010 Vol. 12, No.9)

Solemnity of Christ the King

Almighty and merciful God, you break the power of evil and make all things new in your Son Jesus Christ, the King of the universe. May all in heaven and earth acclaim your glory and never cease to praise you. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

Have a blessed day.

For Christ the King

This Sunday marks the end of Ordinary Time; it is the Finish with Christ the King by Gwen Wise

Solemnity of Christ the King by Mary Ellen Barrett

I've been working on this Sunday's celebration all week. I'm looking forward to being home for a change, as we've been traveling so much lately. Our dinner menu is set. I plan on having a special family meal, perhaps inviting some extra guests to partake in this royal dinner.

Then there's decorations and crafts. When I was younger, I used to decorate the family bulletin board for my mother for this feast with a red fabric draped in the background. In front and center was this favorite holycard of mine that I mounted and decorated with calligraphy:

Over it was a cut out crown, decorated with gold glitter. Alongside going down the display were cut-out letters reading "King of Kings". The feast always reminded me of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. (If you look closely, the image is stained -- this was before I ever heard of acid and archival quality. The tape I used bled through. )

This weekend we'll play with some glitter and glue and make a crown for Christ, and also cut and color this simple image for our centerpiece. And I'll hang up my old decoration for my own family.

I'm teaching a few hymns to my son while we talk and prepare for this feast. To name a few:

• Crown Him With Many Crowns
• All Glory, Laud, and Honor
• To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King

The one in particular I'm teaching is an old one from the 1940s, For Christ the King, by Daniel A. Lord. It is a march, and is immediately catchy for a young boy with the rhythm and words like "army" and "sword". I have shared copies of the sheet music.

For Christ the King 

Chorus:
An army of youth
Flying the standards of Truth,
We’re fighting for Christ, the Lord.
Heads lifted high,
Catholic Action our cry,
And the Cross our only sword.
On Earth’s battlefield
Never a vantage we’ll yield
As dauntlessly on we swing.
Comrades true, dare and do
’Neath the Queen’s white and blue,
For our flag, for our faith
For Christ the King.

1) Christ lifts His hands; the King commands;
His challenge, “Come and follow Me.”
From every side, With eager stride,
We form in the lines of victory.
Let foemen lurk, And laggards shirk,
We throw our fortunes with the Lord,
Mary’s Son, till the world is won.
We have pledged you our loyal word.
[Chorus]

2) Our hearts are pure, Our minds are sure;
No sin our gleaming helmet taints.
No foeman fierce Our shield shall pierce;
We’re captained by God’s unconquered saints.
Yet peace we bring, And a gentle King,
Whose law is light and life and love.
Mary’s Son, May Thy will be done
Here on earth as it is above.
[Chorus]

This feast marks the last week before Advent. I mentioned in my previous post that we are nearing our liturgical calendar switch. My son is counting down the days on our laminated LTP calendar with a Dry Erase Marker. He has decided to cross out all the days of the year except the few days left in Ordinary Time.

Part of our dinner table discussion will be New Year resolutions. What do we want to focus on during the upcoming Liturgical Year? Decisions don't need to be made until next Sunday, but it's helpful to talk it over with the little ones.

May Jesus Christ our King reign in our hearts forever!

Solemnity of Christ the King

Tomorrow is the Solemnity of Christ the King.  For me this is the unofficial beginning of the Advent Season. This feast, established by Pope Pius XI in the early twentieth century, was a call to focus on God's royalty over all things; individuals, families, communities and nations.

This is such a perfect entrance into the penitential season of Advent.  To recognize the supremacy of Christ in every aspect of our lives and order ourselves accordingly. All the Advent season is a preparation for the coming of King.

From Catholic Culture ....

On Christmas the Church would greet, not the Child of Bethlehem, but rather the Rex pacificus — "the King of peace gloriously reigning." Within a fortnight there follows a feast which belongs to the greatest of the feasts of the Church year, Epiphany. As in ancient times oriental monarchs visited their principalities (theophany), so the divine King appears in His city, the Church; from its sacred precincts He casts His glance over all the world....On the final feast of the Christmas cycle, the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, holy Church meets her royal Bridegroom with virginal love: "Adorn your bridal chamber, O Sion, and receive Christ your King!" The burden of the Christmas cycle may be summed up in these words: Christ the King establishes His Kingdom of light upon earth!

So while this feast is not the official beginning of Advent it is appropriate to begin your preparation for the coming of Our King, Christ Jesus.  Many parishes will have a procession in honor of Christ the King, if at all possible participate in this event. If not why not have a family procession?

Clear a spot on a table or mantle to make a small altar. A candle and a some flowers, a bowl for rosary beads and chaplets, a holy card or prayer card is all that is needed.  Then find a nice picture or statue of Jesus.  If you don't have anything appropriate then it can be something you've printed off the internet framed or mounted somehow. This can be a nice quick project for a child in the house. 

Once you have your beautiful picture select a member of the family to carry it, put them at the end of the line and process around the yard and into the house singing a hymn.

Place your picture or statue on your new altar and say a prayer together as a family. Begin with The Litany of the Sacred Heart and end with the following prayer.

O Christ Jesus, I acknowledge Thee to be the King of the universe: all that has been made is created for Thee. Exercise over me all Thy sovereign rights. I hereby renew the promises of my Baptism, renouncing Satan and all his works and pomps, and I engage myself to lead henceforth a truly Christian life. And in an especial manner do I undertake to bring about the triumph of the rights of God and Thy Church, so far as in me lies. Divine Heart of Jesus, I offer Thee my poor actions to obtain the acknowledgment by every heart of Thy sacred Kingly power. In such wise may the kingdom of Thy peace be firmly established throughout all the earth. Amen.

Prayer Source: How to Make Your House a Home by Rev. Bernard Stokes, O.F.M., Family Life Bureau, Washington D.C., 1955

Make your Christ the King altar the focus of your family prayers this coming week. Have the children concentrate on giving up the more secular of their pursuits this week and offer the sacrifice for the preparation of their souls to receive the Infant King. A Novena to the Sacred Heart would be a lovely evening devotion for the family and a prayerful way to enter the season of Advent.

Since you can't have a feast day without some kind of special food, at least not in my house you can't, a king cake is a fun way to mark the day.

Catholic Culture
From last year's post
Wilton

Another fun activity is to have the children make crowns.  This one could be adapted, as could this, or make your own version using this template.  You could also make a large crown from poster board or fun foam and hang it on the wall. Then cut out a variety of jewel shapes from different colored construction paper.  For every act of penance during advent the child can add a jewel to the crown of Christ.  The goal can be to have the most beautiful bejeweled crown to offer the Baby in the manger.

Catholic Mom has some great resource pages to help you out tomorrow. Print out this coloring page, this Mass worksheet or this one.  There is also a lesson plan which is filled with great ideas and resources.

Have a blessed feast day!

Our Christ the King altar.

Finish with Christ the King

As we approach Advent with ever increasing speed, and prepare this week for family and feasting and giving thanks, let's take a few moments to consider how we'll celebrate this coming 34th Sunday, the last one of the (liturgical year), the Solemnity of Christ the King.  Every New Year starts better when we finish the old one well.

In the history of Church feasts Christ the King is a baby. A mere 81 years old, it was even more recently moved to the final Sunday of the liturgical calendar, the Sunday preceding the first Sunday of Advent. Really, the contemplation of Christ the King as we approach Advent is the perfect anecdote to the secular practices of the commercial winterfest that will inevitably encroach upon our quiet days of preparation.  Here in this King, who comes to wear a crown of thorns, we have the object of our longing.  Indeed, it was to combat growing numbers of people ignoring the need for Christ to rule the nations that Pope Pius the XI  initiated the feast.  As he explained in the opening paragraph of Quas Primas :  "We referred to the chief causes of the difficulties under which mankind was laboring. And We remember saying that these manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics: and we said further, that as long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of our Savior, there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations." Furthermore, "Men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ."

So, even as the world around us gears up to party during the Advent season and ignore the true Christmas season, in the end it will fail to bring any lasting satisfaction or joy. What a great grace we have in this feast then, to be reminded on the threshold of the season of preparation that Christ the King  " must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God." (33)

Quas Primas is such an easy encyclical to read that I recommend printing it out to read all or in parts as a family, around the dinner table or at prayer time.  Kings, kingdoms and royal courts are all fertile grounds for the imaginations of children.  With Christ as King and Mary as Queen Mother, young ones can be princes and princesses and " it behooves them ever to fight courageously under the banner of Christ their King."(25)   How will they usher in the kingdom of Our Lord during the coming Advent season?  What will they do to promote the reign of Peace? Leading a discussion like this will help prepare hearts in a very concrete way for the sacrifices of Advent. 

This is such a young feast that traditions with which it is associated are not many. At domestic-church.com there is a description of a parish "Christ the King" party which provides many ideas for games to play at home or with friends. The Crown activity at the bottom of the page would make an especially good craft. The "Crown Poster" with "jewel" shapes that have the children's sacrifices written upon them would be an appropriate home activity, with the jewels being added each day between now and the final Saturday of the year.  A Crown Cake like this regal beauty , or this colorful headpiece would be a beautiful centerpiece for the feast day dinner.  On the other hand, if by Sunday you've baked, boiled, roasted and basted enough to last until the end of the Church year, try this Jello Crown Jewel Dessert in a ring mold.

Finally it will be time to pray.  Begin with an Act of Dedication of the Human Race .  Continue by dedicating your home and family to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and finish up with a Litany.  Perhaps you'd like to stretch these out encompass the days of the week, ending with a "New Year's Eve" party on Saturday, December 2, and quietly praying before bed in the dwindling hours of Ordinary Time.