The three Sundays before Ash Wednesday constitute a special liturgical season in the traditional Catholic calendar. Until the imposition of the Novus Ordo Missae (New Order of Mass) by Paul VI in Advent 1969, the Roman liturgy throughout the world had a special pre-Lenten season of preparation to ease the faithful into the spirit of Lent. These three last Sundays before Lent were known as Septuagesima Sunday, Sexagesima Sunday, and Quinguagesima Sunday respectively, and roughly corresponded to the Sunday that was located 70, 60, and 50 days before Easter. In 2025, February 16 would have been Septuagesima Sunday since it is the third-last Sunday before Ash Wednesday.
Septuagesima Sunday inaugurated a pre-Lenten penitential season known as Septuagesimatide (literally, "the time of Septuagesima" or "the time of the last 70 days"). During this time of year, the Church would introduce several signs of penance into the liturgy, although with less intensity than during the season of Lent. Some of these penitential aspects of the liturgy of Septuagesimatide are: the suppression of the Alleluia at all Masses, the suppression of the Gloria at all Masses apart from feast days, the elimination of the Te Deum in the Divine Office except on feasts, and the use of violet-coloured vestments (violet being a liturgical colour that represents penance).
The suppression of the Alleluia from Septuagesima Sunday until the Easter Vigil means that the last time the Alleluia was heard at Holy Mass or during the Divine Office would be the Saturday just before Septuagesima Sunday (February 15 in the year 2025). Because of this, the tradition developed of "saying farewell to the Alleluia" on this last day that it was used until Easter. The word Alleluia would be written on a poster, or carved into a wooden plaque, or sewn into a vestment, and on the Saturday before Septuagesimatide began, it would be buried in a grave plot usually located behind the parish church or in the parish cemetery. This ceremony was known as "the burial of the Alleluia" and it was a very concrete expression of how important that single word Alleluia is in the Church's sacred liturgy. Alleluia comes from Hebrew and literally means "Praise Yah[weh]." It is usually translated into English as "Praise God" or "Praise the Lord," though it is usually kept in the original Hebrew in the liturgy of the Mass and the Divine Office.
In Advent of 1969, the reforms of Pope Paul VI took effect, and from that time the pre-Lenten season of Septuagesimatide was suppressed from the liturgy. Thus the tradition of "burying the Alleluia" was itself "buried" by the Church after Vatican II. Hence the title of this post: The Burial of Septuagesimatide and the Suppression of the Pre-Lenten Season.
Septuagesimatide used to begin with a hauntingly beautiful Introit (now often called the "entrance antiphon" in the modern liturgy) that prefigured the mystery of the Passion of Christ that was to be meditated upon more intensely during Lent. This Introit is one my favourites in the Gregorian repertoire, both for its sublime yet grave melody and its utterly moving words taken from Psalm 114:3-4 (Vulgate numbering but slightly different words in Latin). The Latin text of the Introit antiphon of Septuagesima Sunday goes like this:
Circumdederunt Me gemitus mortis, dolores inferni circumdederunt Me: et in tribulatione Mea invocavi Dominum, et exaudivit de templo sancto suo vocem Meam.
Verse: Diligam Te, Domine, Fortitudo Mea : Dominus Firmamentum Meum, et Refugium Meum, et Liberator Meus.
Response: Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper : et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
It can be translated into English as the following:
The groans 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.
Verse: I will love Thee, o Lord, My Strength. The Lord is My Firmament, and My Refuge, and My Deliverer.
Response: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
A very beautiful rendition of this sublime antiphon can be heard sung by the Benedictine Monks of the Abbey of St. Peter of Solesmes (Abbaye Saint-Pierre de Solesmes) in Solesmes, France here:
This antiphon that opens what used to be the pre-Lenten season already turns the thoughts of the faithful to the mystery of Our Lord's Passion well before the season of Lent begins. The groans of death surrounded Me; the sorrows of hell encompassed Me. Who would not think of the Passion of Christ, and who would not be moved to contemplate these words from our Saviour's lips? They express a profound sorrow over the enemies of Christ who crucified Him. But the verse following the antiphon is one that expresses hope: The Lord is My Firmament, and My Refuge, and My Deliverer. The sorrows of Our Lord during His Passion are not be confounded with despair. Despair is a sin (against the virtue of hope), whereas sorrow is a legitimate response to the persecution of a righteous man. And who was more righteous than the Incarnate Word Himself?
The abandonment by the Church of her sacred pre-Lenten season of Septuagesimatide parallels the abandonment of Our Lord on the Cross. The contemporary liturgy seems to have an aversion for the Cross. Many references to suffering, sorrow, martyrdom, and even sin were eliminated from the prayers and antiphons of the reformed Catholic liturgy. Perhaps it is time to recover the ancient texts and melodies that have sustained generations of Catholic Saints, especially in their contemplation of the mystery of Christ Crucified. The mystery of the Resurrection does not cancel the reality of the sufferings of Jesus on the Cross. We must never forget the Cross, as if it were simply a historical thing of the past.
The Abandonment of Septuagesimatide and its Impact on the Mass and the Blessed Sacrament
The changes to the liturgy in 1969 (for the Mass) and in 1970 (for the Divine Office) have led to a profound change in the faithful's attitude towards Holy Mass and the Blessed Sacrament in general. The heavy emphasis in modern "Eucharistic celebrations" (as they are now often called) on the Resurrection of Christ has, in a certain sense, eclipsed the sorrows related to meditating on Christ's Passion. The suppression of Septuagesimatide as a penitential season of preparation for Lent, along with the suppression of such sublime antiphons as the Circumdederunt Me, have shifted the focus of the faithful from the mystery of the Passion and Cross to that of the Resurrection. Protestants have always reproached Catholics for focusing too much on the Cross: after all, Christ is risen from the dead, we are reminded (as if we didn't know that). Protestant churches in general use empty crosses in their sanctuaries, whereas we Catholics have always chosen the Crucifix. After the Second Vatican Council, the giddy desire for ecumenism at all costs resulted in this shift of focus in the Catholic Mass from the Cross to the Resurrection. Masses today are supposed to be "celebrations," whereas the Mass of the Ages has always been seen to be first and foremost the sacramental, unbloody representation of Christ's Holy Sacrifice on Calvary.
The Loss of a Spirit of Reparation
One of the tragic consequences of all of the above is that we have lost, in the contemporary Church, a sense of the importance of reparation. As sin is relativized and downplayed (under the pretext of focusing on Christ's mercy and on the Resurrection), the acknowledgement of the damage inflicted upon God by our sins has become, alas, increasingly weakened. If our sins are not so bad, if they are nothing compared to Christ's infinite mercy, then all we have to do is accept His mercy and rejoice in it. Thus "celebration" of the goodness of God becomes the almost-exclusive focus of Catholic worship. The reality of God's holy justice is often thereby set aside, as if the mercy of God trumps His justice; as if the former were good and holy, and the latter not worthy of our consideration.
Eucharistic Reparation — that is, reparation in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament for the idolatries, blasphemies, and sacrileges committed against the holiness of God — has all but fallen by the wayside. I remember speaking to a lay person about the importance of reparation and being told by the person: "I don't believe in all that pre-Vatican II stuff." I am not saying that we should focus exclusively on sin to the exclusion of God's mercy and offer of redemption, but that God's goodness and mercy cannot and should not be used as a justification for downplaying and minimizing the impact of sin.
To offer reparation to Jesus, hidden in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, is a holy and noble action. Our Lord thirsts for adorers and especially for reparative adorers of His Real Presence. Nothing consoles the Heart of Jesus more than the love expressed by His faithful ones through reparative Eucharistic adoration.
Devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus has, as one of its primary goals, the reparation of sins committed against the first three Commandments: sins of idolatry, sins of blasphemy against the Holy Name of God, and sins of violation of the Lord's Day. As Catholics who love Our Lord and cherish His Commandments, we are invited by Him to spend time before His Eucharistic Presence and to offer our adoration in exchange for those who refuse to adore Him or obey His Commandments. In the quiet of a dimly lit church, nocturnal adoration takes on an especially meaningful significance. It was in the dead of night that Christ was betrayed in the Garden of Gethsemane; and so it is in the dark hours of the night that we can best make amends and offer reparation for the sins of mankind.
The Church's abandonment of the season of Septuagesimatide is but a small symptom of the modern desire to abandon the Cross in favour of a Resurrection-only spirituality. And yet it is the Passion and Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ that brought about the redemption of mankind. Let us never forget what He did for us, and let us always offer Him our reparation. The ultimate reparation against sin is love. We give to Jesus our love in exchange for the sins of our fallen human race. Let us bring back the spirit of Septuagesimatide as we contemplate the mystery of Our Lord's Passion through the Blessed Sacrament.
Circumdederunt me... The groans 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 (from the Introit of Septuagesima Sunday).