Our Lord Jesus Christ the King is celebrated at the end of the liturgical year in the Time after Pentecost to focus our minds on Christ’s sovereignty over all creation and history. There is no octave or vigil required beyond the usual norms for great feasts unless the local calendar adds one, so preparations are liturgical and devotional rather than extended by eight days. This celebration matters because it gathers Christians to acknowledge that every aspect of life—work, family, politics, and faith—falls under Christ’s loving rule.
Daily Prayer
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Weekly Prayer
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Weekly Formation
Envy and Brotherly Love
The Way of Darkness
Envy
Envy is sorrow at another person’s good because that good is viewed as diminishing one’s own excellence or advantage. It opposes charity by resenting what should be welcomed and can lead to detraction, hostility, or pleasure at another’s misfortune.
The Way of Light
Brotherly Love
Brotherly love rejoices in another person’s true good and acts to promote it. It opposes envy by seeing another’s gifts, success, and holiness not as a personal loss but as goods that can serve God and the whole community.
Saint & Feast
Principal celebrationCalendar title
Our Lord Jesus Christ the King
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CommemorationCalendar title
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Resumed
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Today in Church History
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Catechism
Catechism of the Catholic Church
In today’s reading, the Catechism teaches that respect for human dignity in economic matters calls us to temperance in our attachment to worldly goods, justice in respecting our neighbor’s rights, and solidarity expressed through generosity. The seventh commandment forbids theft and other unjust ways of taking or keeping another person’s property, including fraud, unjust wages, and taking advantage of another’s hardship or ignorance. It also calls us to keep morally just promises and contracts in good faith, to pay debts, safeguard property rights, and make restitution for injustice. Games of chance are not wrong in themselves, but gambling becomes unacceptable when it deprives people of what they need, and gambling can become enslaving. Above all, the Catechism condemns every practice that treats human beings as merchandise or reduces them to profit, affirming their personal dignity and fundamental rights.
¶ 2407
In economic matters, respect for human dignity requires the practice of the virtue of temperance, so as to moderate attachment to this world's goods; the practice of the virtue of justice, to preserve our neighbor's rights and render him what is his due; and the practice of solidarity, in accordance with the golden rule and in keeping with the generosity of the Lord, who "though he was rich, yet for your sake . . . became poor so that by his poverty, you might become rich."
The seventh commandment forbids theft, that is, usurping another's property against the reasonable will of the owner. There is no theft if consent can be presumed or if refusal is contrary to reason and the universal destination of goods. This is the case in obvious and urgent necessity when the only way to provide for immediate, essential needs (food, shelter, clothing . . .) is to put at one's disposal and use the property of others.
¶ 2409
Even if it does not contradict the provisions of civil law, any form of unjustly taking and keeping the property of others is against the seventh commandment: thus, deliberate retention of goods lent or of objects lost; business fraud; paying unjust wages; forcing up prices by taking advantage of the ignorance or hardship of another.
¶ 2410
Promises must be kept and contracts strictly observed to the extent that the commitments made in them are morally just. A significant part of economic and social life depends on the honoring of contracts between physical or moral persons - commercial contracts of purchase or sale, rental or labor contracts. All contracts must be agreed to and executed in good faith.
¶ 2411
Contracts are subject to commutative justice which regulates exchanges between persons in accordance with a strict respect for their rights. Commutative justice obliges strictly; it requires safeguarding property rights, paying debts, and fulfilling obligations freely contracted. Without commutative justice, no other form of justice is possible.
¶ 2412
In virtue of commutative justice, reparation for injustice committed requires the restitution of stolen goods to their owner:
¶ 2413
Games of chance (card games, etc.) or wagers are not in themselves contrary to justice. They become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others. the passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement. Unfair wagers and cheating at games constitute grave matter, unless the damage inflicted is so slight that the one who suffers it cannot reasonably consider it significant.
¶ 2414
The seventh commandment forbids acts or enterprises that for any reason - selfish or ideological, commercial, or totalitarian - lead to the enslavement of human beings, to their being bought, sold and exchanged like merchandise, in disregard for their personal dignity. It is a sin against the dignity of persons and their fundamental rights to reduce them by violence to their productive value or to a source of profit. St. Paul directed a Christian master to treat his Christian slave "no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, . . . both in the flesh and in the Lord."
Baltimore track
Baltimore Catechism No. 3
Lesson 30 — On the First Commandment
Q. 1164.How does a person sin against faith?
A.A person sins against faith: 1st, By not trying to know what God has taught; 2d, by refusing to believe all that God has taught; 3d, by neglecting to profess his belief in what God has taught.
Q. 1165.How do we fail to try to know what God has taught?
A.We fail to try to know what God has taught by neglecting to learn the Christian doctrine.
Q. 1166.What means have we of learning the Christian doctrine?
A.We have many means of learning the Christian doctrine: In youth we have Catechism and special instructions suited to our age; later we have sermons, missions, retreats, religious sodalities and societies through which we may learn. At all times, we have books of instruction, and, above all, the priests of the Church, ever ready to teach us. God will not excuse our ignorance if we neglect to learn our religion when He has given us the means.
Q. 1167.Should we learn the Christian doctrine merely for our own sake?
A.We should learn the Christian doctrine not merely for our own sake, but for the sake also of others who may sincerely wish to learn from us the truths of our holy faith.