The Royal Office

Why did Pius XI of happy memory appoint the last Sunday of October to be the Feast of the Kingship of Christ? He tells us in his encyclical: it is the Sunday before All Saints day. I recalled this when reading Matins of All Saints this morning, since the Invitatory for All Saints is:

Regem regum Dóminum veníte adorémus: * Quia ipse est coróna Sanctórum ómnium.

(The Lord, the King of kings, come let us worship: * For He is the crown of all the Saints.)

Compare this to the Invitatory of Christus Rex:

Jesum Christum, Regem regum: * Veníte, adorémus.

(Jesus Christ, the King of kings: * Come, let us worship.)

Just so, in the Byzantine Office, likewise inspired by Psalm 94, the cry resounds before reading the Psalter at each Hour:

O come let us worship and bow down to the King our God.

O come let us worship and bow down to Christ the King our God.

O come let us worship and bow down to Christ Himself the King and our God.

Most fittingly, before we celebrate the combined feast of all the triumphant citizens of the heavenly realm, the celestial kingdom, we first worship Our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords: this seems to be the motive behind Pius XI's choice of the last Sunday in October for the new feast he instituted. 

On all feasts, singing Te Deum we confess that Tu Rex gloriæ, Christe – Thou art the King of glory, O Christ.

From His royal office derives our share therein, as St Leo the Great declaims at Christmas: Agnoscere, o Christiane, dignitatem tuam! – O Christian, know thy dignity! For we are sons and daughters of the Most High King, and have in prospect a heavenly inheritance: once we have conquered, by the grace of His conquest, we shall sit with Him on His and His Father's throne.

Hence the last of the blessings for Matins of nine lessons is:

Ad societatem civium supernorum perducat nos Rex Angelorum. Amen.

(To the company of the citizens above may the King of Angels bring us. Amen.)

Of course, every day in the Roman Breviary, we salute Christ the King at Prime, when praying the following prayer:

Dirigere et sanctificare, regere et gubernare dignáre, Dómine Deus, Rex cæli et terræ, hódie corda et córpora nostra, sensus, sermónes et actus nostros in lege tua, et in opéribus mandatórum tuórum: ut hic et in ætérnum, te auxiliante, salvi et liberi esse mereámur, Salvátor mundi: Qui vivis et regnas in sǽcula sæculórum. Amen. 

(Deign to direct and sanctify, rule and govern, Lord God, King of heaven and earth, today our hearts and bodies, our senses, words and actions, in Thy law and in the works of Thy commandments: that here and in eternity, Thou assisting, we may merit to be saved and set free, O Saviour of the world: Who livest and reignest world without end. Amen.)

This short prayer to do God's will, addressed to the royal Son of God, is as it were a daily reconsecration of our selves, our souls and bodies, to Christ the King.

The transfer of this feast in the modern Roman Rite to the last Sunday before Advent has had the unfortunate effect of spiritualising away the social reign of Christ, making it but a private devotion to an eschatological hope – whereas it ought be a foretaste here and now of, and a spur to work to bring about imperfectly here below, what is ever perfect: since as every Collect sings, with His Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, He liveth and reigneth world without end.

Dirigere et sanctificare

Curiously, the Book of Common Prayer includes the following Collect, sometimes styled the "Collect for Grace and Mercy to Keep the Commandments"; the 1764 Scottish Episcopalian liturgy, and its daughter the American Episcopalian from the 1789 down through the 1928 B.C.P., inserted it (in place of the dreadfully Erastian Collect for the King or Queen) as a fitting prayer to follow the Commandments or Summary of the Law – I say curiously, for it is none other than the Dominican version (used at Pretiosa) of the Roman prayer at the end of Prime.  Herewith, the Anglican prayer:

O ALMIGHTY Lord, and everlasting God, vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to direct, sanctify, and govern, both our hearts and bodies, in the ways of thy laws, and in the works of thy commandments; that through thy most mighty protection, both here and ever, we may be preserved in body and soul; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

This is a right noble prayer, a true piece of valuable Anglican patrimony fit for enriching the Church, as Anglicanorum cœtibus states.

Next, the exact Latin equivalent, as found in various sources I have consulted:

DIRIGERE et sanctificare et regere dignare, Domine Deus omnipotens et æterne, quæsumus, corda et corpora nostra in lege tua, et in operibus mandatorum tuorum; ut hic et in æternum, te auxiliante, et corpore et anima sani et salvi mereamur; per Dominum et Salvatorem nostrum Jesum Christum.  Amen.

(This is at least partly a back-translation into Latin of Cranmer's free rendering and amendment of the Sarum prayer behind it.)

The Dominican recension, doubtless a twin of the Sarum original behind Cranmer's:

Dirigere et sanctificare digneris, Domine, sancte Pater, omnipotens æterne Deus, hodie corda et corpora nostra in lege tua et in operibus mandatorum tuorum; ut hic et in æternum, te auxiliante, semper salvi esse mereamur.  Per Christum Dominum nostrum.  Amen.

The Roman, which is longer (redoubling the opening phrase with the infinitives regere et gubernare, adding in the threefold sensus sermones et actus nostros, and doubling salvi with liberi), and addressed, in the Gallican manner, to Christ rather than to God the Father (hence the address Domine Deus, Rex cæli et terræ... Salvator mundi):

Dirigere et sanctificare, regere et gubernare dignare, Domine Deus, Rex cæli et terræ, hodie corda et corpora nostra, sensus, sermones et actus nostros in lege tua et in operibus mandatorum tuorum, ut hic et in æternum, te auxiliante salvi et liberi esse mereamur, Salvator mundi, qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum.  Amen.

And, lastly, the even more elaborate Ambrosian version, from the long preces used at Prime:

Dirígere, custodire, sanctificáre, régere et gubernáre digneris, omnipotens æterne Deus, Rex et Creator cæli et terræ, hódie et semper corda et córpora nostra, sensus et sermónes nostros, actus et cogitationes nostras, in via et in lege tua et in opéribus mandatórum tuórum: ut possimus placere in conspectu tuo: et Angelus tuus bonus semper comitetur nobiscum ad dirigendos pedes nostros in viam pacis et salutis, ut hic et in ætérnum per te, Domine, et per tuam gratiam semper salvi et líberi esse mereámur, Jesu Christe, mundi Salvátor: Qui vivis et regnas in sæcula sæculórum.  Amen.

This prayer is overblown: not just four but five opening infinitives, a whole extra phrase, almost a prayer within a prayer really, imploring angel guardianship (evidently derived from the Benedictus antiphon in the Itinerarium), and much, much else, nearly every phrase being elaborated.