The Feast of Christ the King, instituted by Pope Pius XI to close the jubilee of the Holy Year of 1925, was created to stop, as far as possible, the slow secularisation of society by reviving the piety that lies dormant in so many baptised souls. But the Church did not wait until the last century to celebrate the Messiah's reign. From the earliest centuries, it has dedicated one of its greatest feasts, the Epiphany, to it. This explains why the Office of Christ the King presents the themes sung at Christmas time.

Our Introit, taken from the Book of the Apocalypse, gives us a glimpse of the great eternal liturgy, and seems to reproduce something of the acclamations of the angels and the blessed gathered around the victorious Lamb. It is a long enumeration of the Lord's titles to the adoration and praise of all the creatures redeemed by his blood: "The Lamb who has been slain

is worthy to receive power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honor". The doxology is even more explicit: "let glory and dominion be his for ever and ever".

The melody, in the third mode, was composed on the model of the Introit Dum sanctificatus fuero which, sung on the eve of Pentecost, urges the Holy Spirit to be poured out into the world. The Gospel of the day evokes the coming of Christ in glory. It is an astonishing testimony to the presence of the Holy Spirit, preceding this coming. Is this not the echo of the litanies of the Easter Vigil, where the coming of the Holy Spirit precedes the Day of Judgement?

This example of the third mode is a light, agile and vibrant one, in which the elements call out to each other, linking and complementing each other, forming an indissoluble chain. One need only look at how closely linked are the incisions that make up the three limbs, marked by the half-bar:

Dignus est Agnus, -- qui occisus est,

accípere virtutem, -- et divinitatem,

et sapientiam,  -- et fortitudinem,  -- et honorem.