![]() In order to fit in 40 days of fasting before Easter, therefore, the fast had to start two weeks earlier than it does today,” Catholic author Scott P. “Just as Lent today begins 46 days before Easter, since Sundays are never a day of fasting, so, in the early Church, Saturdays and Thursdays were considered fast-free days. Septuagesima was also, in the early Church, the beginning of the Lenten fast, since according to the old liturgical calendar, Thursdays and Saturdays, in addition to Sundays, were days that Christians would not fast. “The idea of ‘burying the Alleluia’ for the length of these penitential seasons is taken one step further in some places, where a depiction of the Alleluia is literally buried until the chanting of the great Paschal Alleluia during the Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter,” he added. “This is an English translation of an 11th century hymn, wishing ‘farewell’ to the Alleluia, which disappears from the liturgy until Easter, replaced instead by a Tract (verses typically of the Psalms sung instead of the ‘Alleluia’),” he said. In ordinariate communities, the “goodbye” to the Alleluia takes place on the Sunday before Septuagesima, when the hymn “Alleluia, song of gladness” is traditionally sung, Bradley said. ![]() The last alleluias would traditionally have been sung after Vespers the previous night. Septuagesima Sunday traditionally marked the beginning of some of the more somber practices that characterize the season of Lent – it was the day when the saying or singing of “Alleluia” would be suspended until Easter, and the first day that priests would wear penitential purple vestments. Both lead from captivity to freedom, and so also point to salvation won for us by Christ: freedom from slavery to the Promised Land of Heaven,” Bradley said. “Whilst Lent mirrors the 40-year exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, to freedom in the Promised Land, Septuagesima mirrors the 70 years of the Babylonian captivity. Septuagesima Sunday is also symbolic of the 70 years of Babylonian captivity. Quadragesima Sunday (40) is the first official Sunday of Lent. The succeeding Sundays are also named for their distance from Easter: Sexagesima (60), Quinquagesima (50). The name comes from the Latin word for seventieth, since the Sunday falls roughly within 70 days of Easter Sunday. Septuagesima is the ninth Sunday before Easter, or the third Sunday before Lent. Pre-Lent Sundays: Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima ![]() “Septuagesima is still marked in the older Anglican prayer books, and is part of the Anglican patrimony preserved by Divine Worship: The Missal, used by the ordinariates,” Bradley told CNA. “Septuagesima is kept in the personal ordinariates established by Pope Benedict XVI for former Anglicans, now within the full communion of the Catholic Church,” said Father James Bradley, a priest from the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in the United Kingdom. ![]() ![]() These strange-sounding days once marked a period of pre-Lenten preparation and feasting that is still observed by some rites within the Catholic Church and other Christian traditions. If all but the last of those holidays sounds foreign to you, you are likely not alone – they haven’t been officially a part of the Roman Rite’s liturgical calendar since the 1960s, after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Sunday kicks off Carnival season, which comes right before Shrovetide, which culminates in Shrove Tuesday – more popularly known as Mardi Gras. 17 is Septuagesima Sunday, followed by Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima Sundays. Denver, Colo., / 04:21 am ( CNA).- Sunday, Feb. ![]()
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