Christ the King Sunday and Stir-Up Sunday

The Feast of Christ the King,
Sunday Nov 22nd

A little history:

The Feast of Christ the King was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925 as an antidote to secularism, a way of life which leaves God out of man's thinking and living and organizes his life as if God did not exist. The feast is intended to proclaim in a striking and effective manner Christ's royalty over individuals, families, society, governments, and nations.

Read the encyclical.



Some ideas for celebrating the feast:

• Ideas for readings and discussion for a range of children's ages from Proclaiming Faith: Christ the King


• CatholicMom.com has a nice coloring page with some activity ideas (some rather Catholic based, but I really like the idea to make a banner and have the kids decorate it with images and words about the ways Christ is our King: powerful, wise, caring, etc.). And tons of ideas on the Lesson Plan page.


• We've enjoyed getting cardboard crowns (or making them ourselves) and decorating them with whatever we have one hand. Wear them to dinner or use them to decorate.


• And get some recipes and other ideas from Catholic Culture.org


• Other posts you might enjoy:
  Splendor in the Ordinary
  
  
  The image of Christ Pantocrator was taken by Guillaume Piolle and is from the central dome of the cathedral Agios Andreas (Saint Andrew) in Patras, Achaea, Greece.
  

This Sunday is also "Stir-Up Sunday", a traditionally Anglican term for the last Sunday before Advent, and is a reference to the collect for this day:

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be
plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Here's a bit more about the day with a variety of recipes for traditional Plum Pudding. I'm not sure I want to make Plum Pudding, but we might use this Sunday to make a batch of our traditional Swedish mulled wine, Glogg, to sit and meld a bit until Christmas.

One source I read said that this is a traditional day for families to begin their Christmas planning and preparations, so it might be fun to sit down as a family and make lists of crafts, gifts, cards, movies, events etc for the upcoming Advent and Christmas season. Perhaps you might want to make a family calendar with all your Advent plans? We will use this Sunday to pull out our Advent boxes and look through them, freshening up any decorations or supplies.

Do you have any suggestions for recipes that need to be made well-ahead of Christmas and (or) take a good deal of stirring?