Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Regis

From the Holy Gospel according to John
John 18:33-37
In that time: Pilate said to Jesus: Art thou the king of the Jews? Jesus answered: Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or have others told it thee of me? And so on.

Homily of St. Augustine, Bishop
Tract. 51 in Joann. 12-13; Tract 117 in Joann. 19-21
What great matter was it for the King of all worlds to become King of men? For Christ was not King of Israel for exacting of tribute, or arming a host with the sword, and visibly subduing enemies: but King of Israel that he should rule minds, that he should counsel for eternity, that he should bring unto the kingdom of heaven them that believe, hope, and love. Being then, Son of God, the Word by whom all things were made, that it should be his will to be King of Israel is condescension, not preferment, a betokening of mercy, not an increasing of power. For he who was called on earth King of the Jews is in heaven Lord of the Angels. But is Christ King of the Jews only, or also King of the Gentiles? Yea, of the Gentiles also. For when he said in the prophecy: But I am set by him as King upon Sion his holy mountain, preaching the precepts of the Lord, lest on account of the Mount Sion, any should say that he was set as King only of the Jews, he hath straightway subjoined: The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son: this day I have begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

Jesus answered: My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should be delivered to the Jews; but now is my kingdom not from hence. This it is which was the will of our Good Master that we should know: but first we were to be shown the vanity of the opinion concerning his kingdom, entertained by men, whether Gentiles or Jews, from whom Pilate had heard that: as if the reason why he must be punished by death, were that he had affected a kingdom to which he had no right; or because the reigning are wont to look with an evil eye upon those destined to reign; and there were indeed need to beware lest his kingdom should be adverse either to the Romans or the Jews. Now the Lord might have answered at once: My kingdom is not from hence: to the first question put by the Governor, Art thou the King of the Jews ? But in putting a question in return, namely, whether he spake this of himself, or had been told it by others, it was his will to show by Pilate's reply that this had been laid up to him as a crime by the Jews in their conference with the Governor: thus laying open to us, The thoughts of men, which he knew: that they are vain: and to them after Pilate's answer, making a reply which was more reasonable and suitable both to Jews and to Gentiles: My kingdom is not of this world.

                                                                                                            - St Augustine

All kings shall adore Him, all nations shall serve Him

In his Encyclical of December 11, 1925, Pope Pius XI denounced the great modern heresy of secularism. It refuses to recognize the rights of God and His Christ over persons and over society itself, as though God did not exist.

The Holy Father thus instituted the feast of Christ the King to be a public, social and official declaration of the royal rights of Jesus, as God the Creator, as The Word Incarnate, and as Redeemer. This feast makes these rights to be known and recognized, in a way most suitable to man and to society by the sublimest acts of religion, particularly by Holy Mass. In fact, the end of the Holy Sacrifice is the acknowledgment of God's complete dominion over us, and our complete dependence on Him.

The Holy Father expressed his wish that this feast should be celebrated towards the end of the liturgical year, on the last Sunday of October, as the consummation of all the mysteries by which Jesus has established His royal powers and nearly on the eve of All Saints, where He already realizes them in part in being "the crown of all saints"; until He shall be the crown of all those on earth whom He saves by the application of the merits of His Passion in the Mass (Secret).

"The end of the Eucharist", says the Catechism of the Council of Trent, is "to form one sole mystic body of all the faithful" and so to draw them in the worship which Christ, king-adorer, as priest and victim, rendered in a bloody manner on the cross and now renders, in an unbloody manner, on the stone altar of our churches and on the golden altar in heaven, to Christ, king-adored, as Son of God, and to His Father to whom He offers these souls (Preface).

                                        Source: Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, OSB, 1945, adapted and abridged.