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The Feast of Christ the King | pre-1955 Missal | Traditional Latin Mass Readings | 10/25/2026 · Vox Liturgica

• 0:00
  Vox Liturgica: The propers of the day according to the Roman Missal before 1955. The feast of Christ the King, October 25 in the year of our Lord 2026. Of this feast, Dom Gaspar Lefevre writes, In his encyclical of 12/11/1925 His Holiness Pius XI denounced the great modern heresy of laicism. It refuses to recognize the rights of God and his Christ over persons and peoples and organizes the lives of individuals, families, and of society itself as though God did not exist. This laicism ruins society because in the place of the love of God and one's neighbor it substitutes pride and egoism.
• 1:12
  It begets jealousy between individuals, hatred between classes, and rivalry between nations. The world denies Christ because it ignores his royal prerogatives. It must be instructed on this subject. Now a yearly feast can attain this end more effectively than the weightiest documents issued by ecclesiastical authority. The Holy Father has instituted this new feast 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.
• 2:06
  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. And this act is accomplished not only on Calvary but also through the royal priesthood of Jesus which never ceases in his kingdom which is heaven. The great reality of Christianity is not a corpse hanging from a cross but the risen Christ reigning in all the glory of his triumph in the midst of his elect who are his conquest. And that is why the mass begins with the finest vision of the apocalypse where the lamb of God is acclaimed by angels and saints.
• 3:24
  The Holy Father has 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 king of kings and the crown of all saints until he shall be the crown of all those on earth whom he saves especially by the mass. It is indeed principally by the Eucharist which is both a sacrifice and a sacrament that Christ now in glory assures the results of the victorious sacrifice of Calvary by taking possession of souls through the application of the merits of his passion and thereby unites them as members to their head. 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 cult 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.
• 5:28
  Commemorated today is the twenty second Sunday after Pentecost. On this Sunday, one of the last of the ecclesiastical year, the church is full of thought of the day of Christ or of the approaching of the end of the world. If the Lord considers our iniquities who will stand before him? Wherefore the liturgy speaks to us of divine mercy but to obtain it we must be full of mercy ourselves. It is good and pleasant indeed for brothers to be united.
• 6:13
  In the hour of danger let us use the prayer of the church which has an imminent social and fraternal character and which will be heard by God the author of all charity as we call upon him in the collect and as King Ossuerus heard in the prayers of Queen Esther remembering in these days that the love of God and of our neighbor gives to the mind a greater understanding of divine things let then our charity increase more and more in light and in intelligence that we may resist the more terrible assaults of the enemy. Wherefore last Sunday's gospel which used to be the gospel of this day speaks of divine mercy and of fraternal charity. Today's gospel recalls to us a scene which took place on one of the last days of Jesus' life when he confounded by a reply full of wisdom the trap. Whose image and superscription is this? Caesar's, they reply.
• 7:36
  The law required that to pay the tribute they should first change the national coin into coin bearing the effigy of the Roman Emperor. Jesus convicts them of having themselves answered the question by this very change. If you have procured coins with the effigy of Caesar, you must have had the intention of paying the tribute. Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and the master completes his lesson by saying and render to God the things that are God's for the human soul made to the image of its creator owes him the tribute of its adoration and obedience. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
• 8:38
  Amen. The Introit. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and divinity and wisdom and strength and honor. To him be glory and empire through endless ages. Give to the king thy judgment, O God, and to the King's Son thy justice.
• 9:10
  Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be, through all ages of ages. Amen. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honor to him be glory and empire through endless ages. The Collect let us pray. Almighty and everlasting God, who in thy beloved Son, the King of the whole world, hast willed to restore all things, mercifully grant that all the families of nations, now kept apart by the wound of sin, may be brought under the sweet yoke of his rule, who liveth and reigneth with thee through all ages of ages.
• 10:21
  Amen. A commemoration of the twenty second Sunday after Pentecost. O God, our refuge and our strength, who thyself art the fountain of all piety. Look down, we beseech thee, on the fervent prayers of thy church and grant that what in faith we ask, we may in all profitable fullness receive through our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God through all ages of ages. Amen.
• 11:09
  A lesson from the letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Colossians. Brethren, we give thanks to God the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities all things were created through him and for him.
• 12:08
  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace through the blood of his cross. The gradual.
• 12:53
  His dominion will reach from sea to sea, from the great river to the ends of the earth. All the kings of the earth shall adore him. All nations serve him. Alleluia. Alleluia.
• 13:13
  His power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away and his kingdom that shall not be destroyed. Alleluia. A continuation of the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. At that time, Pilate said to Jesus, are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answered, did you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?
• 13:49
  Pilate answered, am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, my kingship is not of this world. If my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight that I might not be handed over to the Jews.
• 14:16
  But my kingship is not from here. Pilate said to him, So you are a king? Jesus answered, You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice.
• 14:50
  The offertory, Ask thy will of me and thou shalt have the nations for thy patrimony, the very ends of the world for thy domain. The Secret: O Lord, we offer thee the victim of man's redemption. Grant we beseech thee that Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord, whom we are emulating in this sacrifice, may himself bestow on all nations the gifts of unity and peace. Who liveth and reigneth with thee through all ages of ages. Amen.
• 15:42
  A commemoration of the twenty second Sunday after Pentecost. Grant, O merciful God, that this saving right may unremittingly free us from all personal guilt and fend off all misfortune through our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God through all ages of ages. Amen. The Preface of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Worthy it is and fitting, right and for our salvation, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto thee, O holy Lord, Father Almighty, everlasting God, who didst anoint thy only begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, with the oil of gladness to be a priest for ever and king of the whole world, so that by offering himself as an unblemished victim upon the altar of the cross he might perform the sacrificial rite of man's redemption and subduing all creation to his sway, he might deliver to thy boundless sovereignty a universal and eternal kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love, and peace.
• 17:34
  Therefore, with angels and archangels, thrones and dominions, and all the warriors of the heavenly army, we day by day exalt without end, with one voice saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, the heavens and the earth are full of thy glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. The communion.
• 18:18
  The Lord sits enthroned as king forever. The Lord will give his people his own blessing of peace. The post communion. Let us pray. We have received the food of immortality and beg, O Lord, that we who are proud to fight under the banner of Christ our King may reign with him for ever in his realm above, who liveth and reigneth with thee for ever and ever.
• 18:59
  Amen. A commemoration of the twenty second Sunday after Pentecost. We have taken the gifts of the sacred mystery, O Lord, humbly imploring that what thou hast bidden us to do in commemoration of thee may avail unto the help of our weakness who liveth and reignest with God the father in the unity of the Holy Ghost God through all ages of ages. Amen. The last gospel, a continuation of the holy gospel according to Matthew.
• 19:46
  At that time, the Pharisees withdrew and plotted together to make Jesus betray himself in his talk and they sent their own disciples to him with those who were of Herod's party and said, master, we know well that thou art sincere and teachest in all sincerity the way of God that thou holdest no one in awe making no distinction between man and man. Tell us then is it right to pay tribute to Caesar or not? Jesus saw their malice. Hypocrites, he said, why do you thus put me to the test? Show me the coinage in which the tribute is paid.
• 20:44
  So they brought him a silver piece and he asked them, whose is this likeness? Whose name is inscribed on it? Caesar's, they said. Whereupon he answered, why then give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's? In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy ghost.
• 21:21
  Amen. Thanks be to God.