Christ the King Sunday 2026 (November 22): meaning, readings and history

What the feast means

The feast celebrates one claim: that Jesus, crucified and risen, rules over everything. The Gospels make the point with irony. When Pilate asks Jesus whether he is “the King of the Jews,” Jesus answers, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:33–36), and then says he came into the world “to testify to the truth” (18:37, BSB). The only crown he wears in the passion is made of thorns, and the charge nailed over the cross reads “JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS” (John 19:19, BSB).

³³ Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? ³⁴ Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me? ³⁵ Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? ³⁶ Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. ³⁷ Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.

Older passages feed the same picture. In Daniel’s vision, “one like the Son of man” comes with the clouds of heaven and receives “dominion, and glory, and a kingdom” that will not pass away (Daniel 7:13–14, KJV), and Jesus takes the title “Son of Man” for himself. Revelation calls him “the ruler of the kings of the earth” (Revelation 1:5, BSB) and, at the end, “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:16, BSB). Paul writes that Christ “must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet,” the last of them death (1 Corinthians 15:25–26, BSB).

¹³ I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. ¹⁴ And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

Pius XI and Quas Primas (1925)

The feast is young. Pope Pius XI created it with the encyclical Quas Primas, signed at St Peter’s in Rome on December 11, 1925, near the end of a Holy Year that also marked the sixteenth centenary of the Council of Nicaea (325).

The letter opens with a diagnosis: the troubles of the world came, Pius argues, from most people having thrust Christ and his law out of their lives, and there would be no real hope of lasting peace among nations until his reign was restored. He gathers the Scripture behind the title, including Daniel 7, Psalm 2, Isaiah 9, Luke 1:32–33, Matthew 25, John 18:37 and Revelation 1:5 and 19:16, and insists that Christ’s kingdom is first of all inward: “This kingdom is spiritual and is concerned with spiritual things” (no. 15). Christ holds authority over civil affairs too, he says, but during his life on earth he refrained from using it, and he does not take earthly goods from those who have them. Pius makes the point with a line from an old Epiphany hymn: Non eripit mortalia, qui regna dat caelestia, roughly “he who gives heavenly kingdoms does not snatch away earthly ones” (no. 17).

The letter’s target was what Pius called “the plague of anti-clericalism” (no. 24): rejecting Christ’s rule over the nations, denying the Church’s right to teach and govern, and putting religion under the state. A yearly feast, he argued, would teach people more effectively than any document, because believers learn the faith “far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries” (no. 21). He set the feast on “the last Sunday of the month of October” (no. 28), the Sunday just before All Saints, so that it would crown the year’s celebration of Christ’s life just before the feast of all the saints (nos. 28–29). He also ordered that the consecration of the human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus be renewed every year on the feast.

The full English text is on the Vatican website (link below); that translation is copyrighted, so this page summarises it and quotes only short phrases.

From October to the end of the year

In 1969 Pope Paul VI approved a revised Roman calendar and the General Norms for the Liturgical Year (motu proprio Mysterii Paschalis, February 14, 1969), in force from January 1, 1970. The norms list the last Sunday in Ordinary Time as “the solemnity of Christ the King” (no. 6). The feast moved from late October to the final Sunday of the church year, and today it is called the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Vatican News explains that the move highlights Christ the King as the destination of our earthly pilgrimage, the goal the church year has been moving toward since the First Sunday of Advent.

The October date did not disappear. Communities using the 1962 Missal still keep Christ the King on the last Sunday of October, so in 2026 the two forms of the Roman Rite keep the feast four weeks apart.

“Reign of Christ” Sunday in other churches

A Catholic feast created in 1925 is now kept by many Protestants as well, through a shared table of readings. The Revised Common Lectionary, published in 1992 by the Consultation on Common Texts, a North American ecumenical body, gives each Sunday its Bible readings on a three-year cycle. It calls the last Sunday before Advent “Reign of Christ” (Proper 29). The name keeps the focus on Christ’s rule rather than on the title “king.”

Churches that use the RCL name the day in their own way. The Church of England’s calendar says “Christ the King.” Luther Seminary’s preaching site, Working Preacher, heads its notes for November 22, 2026 “Christ the King / Reign of Christ.” Whatever the name, these churches keep the same Sunday, and this year Catholic and RCL churches alike hear the same Gospel (below).

The readings for November 22, 2026 (Year A)

Both the Catholic Lectionary and the Revised Common Lectionary run on three-year cycles. The church year that began on the First Sunday of Advent, November 30, 2025, is Year A, the year of Matthew, so the readings on November 22, 2026 come from Year A. Both lectionaries read the same Gospel, the judgement of the nations in Matthew 25:31–46, where the King separates the sheep from the goats and says, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me” (25:40, BSB). The first reading in both is Ezekiel 34, where God promises to shepherd his scattered flock himself and to judge “between one sheep and another” (34:17, 22, BSB), the image Jesus takes up in Matthew 25.

These are references only; the lectionary translations used in church are copyrighted, so read the passages here in the site’s public-domain Bibles: Ezekiel 34, Psalm 23, 1 Corinthians 15, Ephesians 1 and Matthew 25.

In the other two years the Catholic Lectionary reads the passages most associated with the feast. Year B (next year, 2027): Daniel 7:13–14, Psalm 93, Revelation 1:5–8 and John 18:33b–37. Year C (2028): 2 Samuel 5:1–3, Psalm 122, Colossians 1:12–20, and the thief on the cross in Luke 23:35–43, who asks, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom!” (23:42, BSB).

The feast’s key verses in five Bibles

Four passages from the other two years of the cycle carry the feast’s theme of kingship: Daniel 7:13–14, John 18:33–37, Colossians 1:12–20 and Revelation 1:5–8. The five translations on this site differ in small ways that show what the original words can hold.

Colossians 1 is the widest of the four: the Father “has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son” (1:13, BSB), and in the Son “all things were created” and “all things hold together” (1:16–17, BSB). Read the passages in full: Daniel 7, John 18, Colossians 1, Revelation 1; in the Douay–Rheims, Revelation is the Apocalypse.

Keeping the day

The Gospel for 2026 gives the plainest way to keep the feast. Matthew 25 does not ask the nations whether they called Jesus king; it asks whether they fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked and visited the sick and the prisoner. Read Matthew 25:31–46 slowly before Sunday, and choose one of those six works to do in the coming week.

The day also closes the church year. Read Daniel 7:13–14 and Revelation 1:5–8 together, two visions of one who comes “with the clouds,” and then turn the page to Advent: the site’s Advent readings begin on November 29. For the saints the October date pointed toward, see All Saints; for another feast of Christ’s kingship, see Epiphany, when the Magi came asking for “the One who has been born King of the Jews” (Matthew 2:2, BSB).