The Practice During Septuagesima.

“Monks at Prayer in The Cloister”.

Artist: Karl Eduard Biermann (1803–1892).

Date: 1834.

Collection: Walters Art Museum.

Credit Line: Acquired by William T. Walters.

Source: Walters Art Museum:

(Wikimedia Commons)

This year, Septuagesima Sunday is 5 February 2023.

Text is from “The Liturgical Year”.
   By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.
   Volume 4.
   Septuagesima.

The joys of Christmastide seem to have fled far from us. The forty days of gladness brought us by the birth of Our Emmanuel are gone. The atmosphere of Holy Church has grown overcast, and we are warned that the gloom is still to thicken.

Have we, then, for ever lost Him, Whom we so anxiously and longingly sighed after during the four slow weeks of our Advent ?

Has our Divine Sun of Justice, that rose so brightly in Bethlehem [Editor: “House of Bread”], now stopped His course, and left our guilty Earth ?

Not so. The Son of God, The Child of Mary, has not left us The Word Was Made Flesh in order that He might dwell among us. A glory far greater than that of His Birth, when Angels sang their Hymns, awaits Him, and we are to share it with Him.

Only, He must win this new and greater glory by strange, countless, sufferings; He must purchase it by a most cruel and ignominious death; and we, if we would have our share in the triumph of His Resurrection, must follow Him in The Way Of The Cross, all wet with tears and The Blood He shed for us.

The grave, maternal, voice of The Church will soon be heard, inviting us to The Lenten Penance; but she wishes us to prepare for this “laborious Baptism” by employing these three weeks in considering the deep wounds caused in our Souls by sin.

True, the beauty and loveliness of The Little Child, born to us in Bethlehem, are great beyond measure; but our Souls are so needy that they require other lessons than those He gave us of humility and simplicity.

Our Jesus is The Victim of The Divine Justice, and He has now attained The Fullness of His Age; the Altar, on which He has to be slain, is ready; and, since it is for us that He is to be sacrificed, we should at once set ourselves to consider what are the debts we have contracted towards that infinite justice, which is about to punish The Innocent One instead of us, the guilty.

The Mystery of a God becoming Incarnate for the love of His creature, has opened to us the path of the illuminative way; but we have not yet seen the brightest of its light. Let not our hearts be troubled; The Divine Wonders we witnessed at Bethlehem are to be surpassed by those that are to grace the day of our Jesus' triumph; but, that our eye may contemplate these future Mysteries, it must be purified by courageously looking into the deep abyss of our own personal miseries.

God will grant us His Divine Light for the discovery; and if we come to know ourselves, to understand the grievousness of Original Sin, to see the malice of our own sins, and to comprehend, at least in some degree, The Infinite Mercy of God towards us, we shall be prepared for the Holy expiations of Lent, and for the ineffable joys of Easter.

Morning Prayer for Septuagesima.

During the Season of Septuagesima, the Christian, on awakening in the morning, should unite himself with The Church, who, at the first Dawn of Day, begins her Psalms of Lauds with these words of the royal prophet:

Miserere mei Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy.

This is then followed by one's Morning Prayers.

Night Prayer for Septuagesima.

During one's Night Prayers, one should add the following Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity. These have been granted an Indulgence of Seven Years and Seven Quarantines for each recitation by Pope Benedict XIV [Editor: Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, Reigned 1740 - 1758].

Act of Faith.

O my God, I firmly believe whatsoever The Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church requires me to believe: I believe it, because Thou hast revealed it to her, Thou Who are The Very Truth.

Act of Hope.

O my God, knowing Thy Almighty Power, and Thy Infinite Goodness and Mercy, I hope in Thee, that, by the merits of The Passion and Death of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, Thou wilt grant me Eternal Life, which Thou hast promised to all such as shall do the works of a good Christian; and these I resolve to do by the help of Thy Grace.

Act of Charity.

O my God, I love Thee with my whole heart and above all things, because Thou art The Sovereign Good; I would rather lose all things than offend Thee. For Thy Love also, I love and desire to love my neighbour as myself.

Then follows, of course, The Marian Anthem which The Church uses from The Feast of The Purification (Candlemas) on

2 February until Easter: “Ave Regina Cælorum”.

“The Liturgical Year”

By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.,

is available from The Priory Shop At SILVERSTREAM PRIORY