In the old Roman Rite calendar, today would have been the Feast of Christ the King. This solemnity was deliberately placed on the last Sunday of October to coincide with Reformation Sunday. For reasons lost on me, the liturgical calendar was changed in 1970, and Christ the King was moved to the Sunday before Advent. I fail to see why changing the calendar was required to implement the liturgical recommendations (mandates?) of Vatican II. Anyhow, being an ex-Protestant and an increasingly traditional Catholic, I wanted to say something on the Sunday that celebrates heresy and the painful division in the Church. Thus I offer you the lyrics to "The Church’s One Foundation". The highlighted verse is not printed in the hymnals my parish uses. I really wish it was.
The Church’s one foundation
is Jesus Christ her Lord;
she is his new creation,
by water and the word:
from heaven he came and sought her
to be his holy bride;
with his own blood he bought her,
and for her life he died.
Elect from every nation,
yet one o’er all the earth,
her charter of salvation,
one Lord, one faith, one birth;
one holy Name she blesses,
partakes one holy food,
and to one hope she presses,
with every grace endued.
Though with a scornful wonder
men see her sore oppressed,
by schisms rent asunder,
by heresies distressed;
yet saints their watch are keeping,
their cry goes up, ‘How long?’
and soon the night of weeping
shall be the morn of song.
Mid toil and tribulation,
and tumult of her war
she waits the consummation
of peace for evermore;
till with the vision glorious
her longing eyes are blessed,
and the great Church victorious
shall be the Church at rest.
Yet she on earth hath union
with God, the Three in one,
and mystic sweet communion
with those whose rest is won.
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
like them, the meek and lowly,
on high may dwell with thee.
Words: Samuel John Stone, 1868
