Sunday “in the seventieth” – Septuagesima

We have already come to Septuagesima Sunday, so early this year thanks to the vagaries of the Moon.

Pre-Lent is here.   With the traditional calendar of the Roman Rite, in the Vetus Ordo, you cannot be surprised by Lent sneaking up on you. You have no excuse.   Start thinking about your Lenten discipline now.

There are three Pre-Lent Sundays, Septuagesima Sunday, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima, which in Latin respectively mean “Seventieth, Sixtieth, Fiftieth”. In Latin this Sunday is described as “Dominica in Septuagesima… Sunday in the seventieth”.  These Sundays are so named from rough estimates about the number of days until the Triduum, which is technically not part of Lent, which in Latin is called Quadragesima.  Septuagesima Sunday is the 63rd day before the Triduum. It therefore occurs in the 7th decade (10-day period) before Easter (i.e., the 61st to 70th days).  Sexagesima is the 56th before, in the 6th decade (51st to 60th).  Quinquagesima is the 49th day, the 5th decade (41st to 50th) days before the Triduum.

The reminders of onrushing Lent will be obvious to the Traditional Mass church-goer.  On these “Gesima” Sundays the vestments are penitential purple.  The Alleluia ceases to be sung from 1st Vespers onward until the Vigil of Easter.  There is even a custom of having a little funeral and burying a scroll or image with “Alleluia” until its resurrection at Easter.

These Sundays, very important in the ancient Church for catechumens, have Roman Stations.    The Station for Septuagesima is at St. Lawrence outside-the-walls.  The horrific death of this greatly venerated deacon martyr, who died over the coals on an iron grate, looms over this Sunday, the beginning of the catechumenal journey toward membership in Christ’s Mystical Person, the Church.

The Mass formulary itself, which dates at least to the time of St. Gregory the Great (+604), sets the tone for these pre-Lent, preparatory Sundays.  For example, the Introit antiphon sings: “The terrors of death surged round me, the cords of the nether world enmeshed me.”

So sings Lawrence upon his searing grate.

So sings Christ Himself as His Passion is underway in earnest.

So sing the catechumens, their first savory taste of what it is to commit to being a Christian, which means the Cross.

Indeed, the Epistle from 1 Corinthians on this Sunday, going back to ancient times, is about the struggle for the unperishing crown, passing through the sea to the other side in death, rising to new life, eating the manna from heaven, drinking from the rock.

The Tract, which replaces the Alleluia is the De profundis.

As the great liturgist and Cardinal of Milan, Bl. Ildefonso Schuster, remarks about the time of St. Gregory I the tone of the Gesimas,

“they reflect the terror and grief that filled the minds of the Romans in those years during which war, pestilence, and earthquake threatened the utter destruction of the former mistress of the world.”

Holy Church clearly wanted the catechumens to know what they were getting into.

In a sense, this is what we all have gotten into and are in even now, though comforts can mask the serious issues of our earthly days and the spiritual war that rages perpetually around us.