Christ the King

Christ the King Sunday was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925 as a way of countering what the Church saw as growing secularism in the world, so that we finish up the old liturgical year with a grand acclamation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Since being implemented in the Roman Catholic Church, the observance has spread to Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Moravian, United Church of Christ, and perhaps other churches. In at least one Scandinavian Lutheran Church it’s still called the Sunday of Doom because the old lectionary was centered on the day of final judgment.

The psalm choices for the day are from Psalm 100, which old-line Episcopalians call the Jubilate, and Psalm 95, the Venite. In the age when we had Morning Prayer every Sunday we alternated between the two as the Invitatory Hymn from Sunday to Sunday, always singing them in the incomparable harmony of Anglican Chant. My hope, not to say expectation, is that in Heaven the liturgical renewal hasn’t struck, that they are still singing only Anglican Chant there, and that those like me who couldn’t sing harmony in this life will join the heavenly chorus with lusty voice in the age to come.

By the Grace of God, they may also be using the Coverdale Psalter.

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Jubilate     Psalm 100

Be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands; *
    serve the Lord with gladness
    and come before his presence with a song.

Be ye sure that the Lord he is God; *
it is he that hath made us and we ourselves;
    we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

O go your way into his gates with thanksgiving
and into his courts with praise; *
    be thankful unto him and speak good of his Name.

For the Lord is gracious;
his mercy is everlasting; *
    and his truth endureth from generation to generation.