The Feast of Christ the King will be observed in a celebration of Solemn Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street in New Haven, on Sunday, 27 October, at 2:00 pm. The Reverend Michael Novajosky, Pastor of the Cathedral Parish of Bridgeport will be the celebrant and homilist, and The Reverend Donald Kloster will be the deacon. The Schola Cantorum of the Saint Gregory Society will sing the Gregorian chant and polyphony for the service.

Pope Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King in his Encyclical Letter of Quas primas of 1925. In this letter the Pope showed how laïcism and secularism, by organizing society without any reference to God, lead to the apostasy of the masses and the ruin of society because of their complete denial of Christ’s Kingship, which is one of the greatest heresies of our time. The Pope proposed this feast as an annual liturgical assertion of Christ’s divine right of Kingship as an effective means of combating this pernicious heresy.

By its position on the last Sunday in October, towards the end of the Liturgical Year and just before the All Saints Day, the feast of Christ the King comes at the climax of the celebration of all Christ’s mysteries and a kind of earthly anticipation of his everlasting reign over the elect in the glory of heaven.  

Music for the liturgy will include the Gregorian chant ordinary “Missa Marialis” (Vatican edition IX/X), the Mass proper for the feast of Christ the King (“Dignus est agnus”), motets by John Dunstable and Guillaume Dufay, and organ music by Jacques Boyvin and Guillaume de Nivers.