WDTPRS – Septuagesima Sunday: Pre-Lent Begins!

[yankeesouth]

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2019/02/wdtprs-septuagesima-sunday-pre-lent-begins/

While in the new-fangled calendar Sunday is the 6th in Ordinary Time, and celebrated in green vestments,in the traditional Roman calendar this Sunday is called Septuagesima , Latin for the “Seventieth” day before Easter.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

I read about this custom in the book Around the Year With the Trapp Family (as in Maria Von Trapp).

 

[AlbertDerGrosse]

I’ve never understood the purpose of Septuagesima to be honest. Lent is the preparatory time leading up to Easter, so Septuagesima is the preparatory time leading up to the preparatory time? Should this season be characterized by anything in our own devotional life outside of the Church’s liturgy (i.e. something else besides saying bye bye to the Alleluia and Gloria and switching over to violet vestments? As far as I know fasting and enhanced abstinence still doesn’t occur until Lent proper)

 

[BartholomewB]

In certain places and at certain times, the seventeen-day period from Septuagesima to Shrove Tuesday was known as Shrovetide, but what people did to observe it or to celebrate it, apart from going to their yearly confession, I have never found out. Carnival never began until the last few days of Shrovetide, I think.

 

[RedDuke]

I like Septuagesima because it helps ease me into the penances of Lent. Without it, Ash Wednesday seems to come real quick and suddenly everything is sacrifice & penance.

Like Fr. Z said, the Church’s discipline for Lent used to be much stricter than it is now, so the need for a preparation for Lent was more obvious.

 

[bardegaulois]

I too favour Septuagesima, as it keeps a nice gradual rise throughout the Lenten season and indeed the entire Paschal season. Septuagesima gives way to Lent proper, and the spiritual discipline intensifies. Then Passiontide comes, the statues are veiled, and the discipline gets higher. Then we move dramatically from the triumphant entry to the Passion on Palm Sunday. Then the organ and bells and the Blessed Sacrament and all the movable furnishings of the Church vanish on Holy Thursday. It’s the beginning of a time of dramatic privation which starts slow put accelerates through to its climax at the Easter Vigil, after which we see a denouement nearly as long to Pentecost and the post=Pentecost feasts. It’s a little less staccato than the sudden and somewhat jarring overnight transition from post-Epiphany Ordinary Time into Lent.

 

[commenter]

In the old churches if you went in the front door there was a large entrance room. This had its own identity, slightly religiously decorated, an area where you took off your hat, or put on a veil. You pause.The sounds of the street are somewhat muted, you are shaking the snow off, preparing yourself to enter the Church itself.

Somewhat like the preparation season for Lent. You are prepared gradually. Nowadays there’s no pause.

 

[Maximilian75]

In the old churches if you went in the front door there was a large entrance room. This had its own identity, slightly religiously decorated, an area where you took off your hat, or put on a veil. You pause .The sounds of the street are somewhat muted, you are shaking the snow off, preparing yourself to enter the Church itself.

^^ I like this analogy

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

Carnival never began until the last few days of Shrovetide, I think.

I think it was a regional thing.
I’ve seen references to Carneval starting anywhere from Epiphany to Candlemas (February 2)