Since the year 2000 the Church of England has kept this last Sunday before Advent as the Feast of Christ the King.

Before then, it was known as ‘Stir-up Sunday’, taking its name from the prayer for the day in the old Prayer Book, which started with the words, "Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people...". Because of the image of stirring, this weekend became associated with the custom of making Christmas puddings. Families would gather together on this day to mix and steam their puddings, and everyone would take a turn to give the mixture a good stir.

But today, the logic of marking the last Sunday of the church´s year, as the Feast of Christ the King, is clear. Our year begins with Advent and the hope of the coming Messiah, and ends with the proclamation of Christ´s universal kingship, his universal sovereignty.

On this day in 2002 Pope John Paul II said: “He does not come to reign as the kings of the world do but to establish the divine power of love in the heart of the human person, of history and of the cosmos.”

The picture above is the Christ the King statue in Świebodzin in western Poland. At 33 metres tall (one metre for each year of Jesus’ earthly life), this is the largest statue of Jesus in the world.