Christ The King Sunday: Stir-Up Sunday.

In an extract from Keeping Advent and Christmas, Leigh Hatts’ helps us to rediscover the Christian-based, seasonal customs buried deep within our culture and church life, starting with Christ the King Sunday, the Sunday before Advent Sunday, the last day of the Church year. In England it is also known as Stir-up Sunday …

Christ the King

Although this Sunday has been designated Christ the King only since 1969 it has deep biblical roots. The feast, at first observed at the end of October, was instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI who wished to counter the celebrations around the October anniversaries of both the Russian communists (1917) and Mussolini’s march on Rome (1922) by proclaiming that there was no true king but Christ. The Pope requested that Liverpool’s new Metropolitan Cathedral be dedicated to Christ the King.

It was the nature of this kingship that troubled Pilate hours before Jesus was crucified. ‘My kingdom does not belong here,’ Jesus told Pilate. ‘You say that I am a king. I was born…to bear witness to the truth’ (John 18: 37). The crown Jesus was to wear that morning was the crown of thorns. So by his sacrifice on that day, Jesus established a spiritual kingdom without boundaries. By following Christ and his teaching so room is made for his dominion.

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 Pope added that Christians should ‘seek the Kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God’.

The epistle reading in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer for today, the ‘Sunday next before Advent’, is from Jeremiah 23 and includes the words ‘a King shall reign, and prosper, and shall execute judgement and justice in the earth’.

Stir-up Sunday

In that now little used Book of Common Prayer, today’s collect (prayer before the readings) begins with the words ‘Stir up’ which gave rise to the custom of making Christmas puddings today.

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.

Stir up, or Stiere up as Archbishop Thomas Cranmer originally wrote in 1549, is a translation of the Sarum rite collect for the day which began ‘Excita’, meaning ‘stir’. The prayer itself originates from the Sacramentary of St Gregory at a time when today was considered to be part of a five-week Advent. The Sarum Rite was the modified form of the Roman Mass used in the Salisbury Diocese and beyond from the 13th century to the mid-16^th century.

There is no standard recipe for Christmas pudding, which has its origins in a medieval beef or mutton broth thickened with bread and enlivened by the addition of prunes (or plums) and spices. Around 1495 the meat was dropped and a stiffer mixture called Christmas pie tended to be steamed in a pudding cloth which resulted in the round pudding seen in comics and cartoons and now only sold at National Trust shops. By the mid-19th century a basin began to replace the cloth and the plum or figgy (fig) pudding, with added sugar, became Christmas pudding.

The name pudding may first have been used by Anthony Trollope in his 1858 novel Doctor Thorne. Bread, in the form of breadcrumbs, is still included along with the fruit in many recipes.

The Queen’s Christmas pudding is made to a recipe based on one used in 1714 for George I’s first Christmas in England. He was known as the Pudding King and his contained suet as well as prunes, dates and glace cherries.

The custom of the cook inviting others to stir and make a secret wish may be an early 10th-century custom. The wooden spoon is said to represent the wood of the manger where newly born Jesus was laid. Stirring should be from east to west to signify the journey of the Magi. Another tradition suggests that the pudding should have 13 ingredients to represent Christ and his 12 Apostles.

In Church

In the preface to the Mass, the feast proclaims ‘a kingdom of justice, love and peace’ which is the result of the birth, death and resurrection of Christ which has been recalled during the preceding Christian year. According to one introduction to today’s Mass ‘we celebrate Christ our anointed King who ... brought us out of darkness into light’. Next week, on Advent Sunday, Christians will again begin the wait in the darkness for the light of Christ.

At the climax of the Christian year the readings are a reminder that after the birth of Jesus all who follow him are part of the Body of Christ to welcome the stranger, help the poor and visit prisoners. This is Christ the servant king. The gospel reading is a passage from Good Friday when Jesus is called ‘King of the Jews’ or a discourse just before Holy Week on the Last Judgement.

Today is a joyful Sunday celebrating the completion of the Christian year with white vestments before beginning the cycle again with the more sombre Advent purple. Suitable hymns include The servant king; Christ triumphant ever reigning; Crown him the Lord of Love!; Crown him with many crowns; Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendour; Rejoice, the Lord is King and Teach me, my God and King.

Anglican Common Worship allows for a modern version of the Stir-up collect to be used as the post Communion prayer. The words stir up, again a translation of excita, will be heard

again as part of the Easter Vigil collect next year.

This is an extract from Keeping Advent and Christmas: Discovering the Rhythms and Riches of the Christian Seasons by Leigh Hatts. The book is out now in paperback, priced £9.99.