Christ Church

Epiphany ends and pre-lent begins. It makes, I hope, the winter seem shorter! Purely psychological, of course, but the pre-lenten Sundays with their impossible Latin polysyllabic names point us towards Spring and Easter. They help, in Loreena McKennit’s words “to drive the cold winter away,” at least notionally.

What curious names they are! Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima. A kind of esoteric knowledge at its best, it might seem, and yet these are the terms which have been in common use for centuries upon centuries. More recently, they have been given up in favour of more prosaic terms but with more complex demands of computation and order, namely, the parade of Sundays in Ordinary Time. There is, I think, such a wealth of colour and feel to these more intriguing and exotic terms. What exactly do they mean? And what do they signify?

Septuagesima refers to the week of the seventieth day before Easter; Sexagesima to the week of the sixtieth day; Quinquagesima, to the week of the fiftieth day and stands on the brink of Lent itself, just a few days before Ash Wednesday. What do they signify? Historically they recall a time when the Quadragesima, the forty days of Lent, were computed differently, with fasting and repentance scheduled for certain but not all days of the week, hence seventy, sixty and fifty day periods in which the biblically based forty days of Lent were accomplished. But beyond that historical note, these Sundays have developed a special character of their own, spiritually and theologically. They are very much about the transformation of the older classical virtues of prudence, courage, temperance and justice into the forms of love through the power of the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity.

In short, they inculcate a more inward consideration of the journey of the soul in Lent.  Unusual, even curious names but which are well worth the trouble in giving them your fullest and prayerful attention.

Fr. David Curry