Feast of Christ the Priest

Countries and institutes observing the feast

• Confraternity of Christ the Priest in Australia
• Spain
• Chile
• Poland (since 2013; Decree, 3 April 2013)
• Slovakia (since 2013)
• Netherlands (since 2014)
• Czech Republic (since 2015)
• England and Wales (since 2018)
• Pampanga, Philippines (since 2001)
• Community of Saint Martin (since 2020)

Significance

The feast focuses firstly on Jesus’ Priestly Office (Latin: Munus sacerdotale). He is considered the model for believers, and for the clergy in particular, with priests acting In persona Christi (“In the person of Christ”). The laity are thus urged to pray that priests would be more like Christ, the compassionate and trustworthy high priest (Hebrews 2:17), ever-living to intercede for humanity before The Father (Heb 7:25).

The Second Vatican Council taught many things about the Priesthood of Christ, and sharing in that one Priesthood through the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Orders. This development has been reflected in many subsequent documents. One effective way to build upon this teaching is to establish the Feast of Christ the Priest more widely.

What Pope Pius XI wrote about the feast in honor of Christ’s Kingly Office can be said just as truly about this feast in honor of Christ's Priesthood:

Liturgical aspects

The feast has its own proper texts for the Mass, as for the Votive Mass of the Blessed Eucharist B.

The feast also has approved Latin, Spanish and English texts for the Liturgy of the Hours. The formulary lacks proper texts for the extended vigil (per IGLH 73). This rules celebration of the extended vigil out entirely, since, unlike other feasts, feasts of the Lord cannot draw on Common of the Saints.

The entry from the Roman Martyrology (2005) reads:

The Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, The Eternal High Priest, according to the order of Melchizedek. In him the Father has been well pleased from before all time. As Mediator between God and human beings, fulfilling his Father’s will, he sacrificed himself once on the altar of the Cross as a saving Victim for the whole world. Thus, instituting the pattern of an everlasting sacrifice, with a brother’s kindness he chose, from among the children of Adam, men to augment the priesthood, so that, from the sacrifice continually renewed in the Church, streams of divine power might flow, whereby a new heaven and a new earth might be made, and throughout the whole universe there would be perfected what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the human heart.}}

References

References

1. "Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments".
2. Prot. N. 196/87, Prot. N. CD. 501/91
3. Prot. N. 452/12/L
4. Prot. 109/13/L, SEP – D/6.1-1
5. Prot. 593/13/L; https://www.kbs.sk/pdf/KBS/KB2014NajvyssiKnazFormularLK.pdf
6. "Offici?le website van de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk in Nederland".
7. Prot. n. 58/15
8. [[Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales]], [https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Sanctoral/OLJC-full-Latin.pdf ''Domini nostri Iesu Christi Summo et Aeterno Sacerdote - festum''], Prot. N. 83/13/L, Prot. N. 144/17, accessed 30 November 2020
9. Prot. 349/20
10. Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas 21 establishing the universal feast of Christ the King