Note: This article is inspired to some extent by a chapter in Dom Guéranger’s Liturgical Year, which is too lengthy to reproduce here. Also see this fine article in the New Liturgical Movement.

Septuagesima is a brief period of two and a half weeks to prepare us for Lent. Anglicans using the Prayer Book are familiar with this short season. It also features in the ancient Sarum Use and the extraordinary form of the Roman rite. The three Sundays are called Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima. They are named from their numerical reference to Lent, which, in the language of the Church, is called Quadragesima, that is, forty, because Easter is prepared for by the forty days of Lent.

Those who take Lent seriously prepare for Easter as the Catechumens of the early Church prepared for their Baptism – by learning the faith, praying, converting to the Lord Jesus and doing good in the world.

The Septuagesima season was abolished in the modern liturgy probably because it is not as old as Lent. Dom Guéranger identifies its origin as the Byzantine Liturgy (which I have not verified for this article).

In one of his homilies, Saint Gregory the Great mentions the fast of Lent lasting for less than forty days due to the Sundays. The deficit of the four Sundays is made up by the days from Ash Wednesday until the Saturday in Quinquagesima week, and these days were instituted after Gregory’s pontificate. It will be noticed that this final half-week of Quinquagesima week is not yet, properly speaking, Lent. For example, the Common Preface is used at ferial Masses, not the Preface of Lent.

Peter of Blois (12th century), says in his sermon 12: All religious begin the fast of Lent at Septuagesima; the Greeks, at Sexagesima; the clergy, at Quinquagesima; and the rest of Christians, who form the Church militant on earth, begin their Lent on the Wednesday following Quinquagesima. I should add a word about the word carnival. It comes from two Latin words, carne meaning flesh meat and vale meaning good-bye. Today, it is associated with merry-making and feasting in some parts of the world, northern Europe in particular, but also in South America. But, the word means “good-bye to meat”. A strict Lenten observance means abstinence from meat, dairy products and even fish except for Sundays. The Church has lessened the rigour for most of us and allows meat except on Fridays. Perhaps we could add Wednesdays to Fridays for abstaining. But that is for Lent. Fasting begins on Ash Wednesday.

The Gallicans retained some practices of the Oriental Churches, and this is certainly how the pre-Lent found its way into the Roman liturgy. These mournful weeks do not bind us to fasting as in Lent, but prepare us spiritually. We stop singing the Gloria and Alleluia at Mass, and Alleluia is not pronounced at the Office either. This discipline of abolishing the Alleluia at Septuagesima goes back to the eleventh century, under Pope Alexander II, who only renewed a rule already sanctioned in that same century by Pope Leo IX.

As mentioned, Septuagesima means seventy, and has a numerical relation to Quadragesima (the forty days). In reality, there are not seventy but only sixty-three days from Septuagesima Sunday to Easter. Each of the three previous Sundays has a name expressive of an additional ten, which is not exact numerically, for the reason that Sundays are an octave apart, and not ten days. Quinquagesima means fifty and Sexagesima means sixty. The Septuagesima season depends on the date of Easter celebration. It comes sooner or later. January 18th and February 22nd are called the Septuagesima keys, because the Sunday, which is called Septuagesima, cannot be earlier in the year than the first, nor later than the second, of these two days.

In liturgical terms, the deacon and subdeacon at High Mass respectively wear the dalmatic and tunicle. In Lent, they wear the folded chasuble.

In spiritual terms, it can be a good time for thinking about our Lenten resolutions: being more assiduous with prayers, more careful what we write on the Internet, making that little bit more effort to make blogs more edifying and pleasant to read. Then, and only then, do we think about those privations motivated by our conversion, and which we will keep in the secret of our Garden of the Soul.

The Church recommends the Forty Hours devotion, exposing the Blessed Sacrament and having people come to Church for adoration.