With Septuagesima begins the Pre-Lenten season that comprises Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima Sundays. These next three weeks form a transition from the joy of Christmastide to the austerity of the Penitential Season of Lent.
"The last shall be first and first last."
Today the traditional Catholic Church celebrates the Mass of Holy, Septuagesima Sunday. Today's Mass lesson for traditional Catholics; When viewed in the light of Adam's fall, the Mass celebrated today contains a solemn note of sorrow. God holds out a great reward to us, but we must work to receive it. Unfortunately, we are by nature more inclined to endure hardships for perishable goods of this life than we are for the Kingdom of God and our eternal happiness in it.
Why is this Sunday called Septuagesima?
The word means seventy. According to the First Council of Orleans, in the year A.D. 545, many pious ecclesiastics and lay persons of the primitive Church used to fast seventy days before Easter, and their fast was called, therefore, Septuagesima, a name which was afterwards retained to distinguish this Sunday from others. The same was the case with the three following Sundays; many Christians beginning their fast sixty days before Easter, whence the name Septuagesima; others fifty days, whence Quinquagesima; others forty days, whence Quadragesima.
Why did the first Christians fast seventy days?
Alcuin and Amalarius say that the captivity of the Jews in Babylon first suggested it; for as the Jews were obliged to do penance seventy years, that they might thereby merit to return into the promised land, so Christians sought to regain the grace of God by fasting for seventy days.
Why does the Church, from this Sunday until Easter, omit all joyful chants, as the Te Deum, Alleluia, Gloria in excelsis?
To remind the sinner of the grievousness of his errors, and to exhort him to penance. To incite us to sorrow for our sins, and to show us the necessity of repentance, the Church at the Introit in the name of all nations unites her prayers with David, saying: “The sorrows of death surrounded me, the sorrows of hell encompassed me, and in my affliction I called upon the Lord, and He heard my voice from His holy temple.
Explanation From Epistle: 1 Corinthians: 9, 24 - 10-5, Brethren: Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain. And every one that striveth for the mastery refraineth himself from all things, and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown: but we an incorruptible one. I therefore so run, not as an uncertainty: I so tight, not as one beating the air: but I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway. For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: and did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ), but with the most of them God was not well pleased.
Note: Reflect, O Christian, what we poor sinners ought to be willing to do to gain heaven when the great apostle suffered so much to obtain eternal life there.
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