Peterborough Cathedral.
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The Septuagesima season always begins with the ninth week before Easter and includes three Sundays called, respectively, Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima.
These names, which were borrowed from the numerical system of the time, denote a series of decades working back from the commencement of Lent, which is known in Latin as “Quadragesima”.
Easter is a moveable Feast and can be kept, according to the year in which it occurs, between 22 March and 25 April.
When it falls early, the Septuagesima season encroaches on the Time after Epiphany, some Sundays of which are then kept between the twenty-third and the last Sunday after Pentecost.
Septuagesima’s Liturgical period is a prelude to Lent and a remote preparation for Easter. It serves as a time of transition for the Soul, which must pass from Christmas joys to the stern penance of the sacred forty days.
Even if the Fast is not yet of obligation, the colour of the Vestments worn is already Violet. As during Advent, the recital of the Gloria in Excelsis is suspended, since this Hymn, which celebrated Christ’s birth in our mortal flesh, is reserved to extol Him when born in His undying Body, i.e., when He rises from the tomb.
“Born once of The Virgin, Thou art now reborn from the sepulchre,” will then be the cry of The Church. [Editor: Hymn at Matins on Low Sunday.]
Again the Martyrology introduces Septuagesima Sunday as that on which “we lay aside the song of The Lord, which is “Alleluia”,
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