Lent is near
The liturgical season of Lent is drawing closer these days, or rather we are walking steadily towards it. The pre-Lenten season began this past Sunday with what is called the time of Septuagesima.
I‘d like to share here with you a few excerpts from Jacobus de Voragine‘s Golden Legend taken out of his articles on Septuagesima and the following three Sundays lying ahead: Sexagesima, Quinquagesima, and Quadragesima.
“Septuagesima designates the time of deviation or turning away from God, Sexagesima the time of widowhood, Quinquagesima the time of pardon, Quadragesima, or Lent, the time for spiritual penance.“
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 132
Septuagesima, and the number 70
“Septuagesima begins on the Sunday on which the introit Circumdederunt me gemitus mortis is sung, and ends on the Saturday after Easter. (…)
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 132-133
(…) this season signifies the time of deviation, the fall away from God, of exile and tribulation for the whole human race from Adam to the end of the world. Now this exile extends through the period of seventy days and is included in the passage of seven thousand years: we understand seventy days as representing seventy hundreds of years. We count six thousand years from the world‘s beginning to the Lord‘s ascension, and we understand the remaining time to the end of the world as the seventh millennium: only God knows when it will end.
It was in the sixth age of the world that Christ snatched us, by baptism, out of this exile, restoring to us the robe of innocence and the hope of eternal reward, but it is when our time of exile is over that we shall be perfectly graced with both robes. That is why in this time of deviation and exile we put aside the chants of joy. In the office of the eve of Easter, however, we sing one Alleluia, expressing our thanks for the hope of an eternal homeland and the recovery, through Christ, of the robe of innocence in the sixth age of the world. This Alleluia is followed by a tract, signifying the labor by which we still have to fulfill God‘s commands. On the Saturday after Easter, which, as has been said, brings an end to Septuagesima, we sing two Alleluias, because when this world‘s term is completed, we will obtain the double robe of glory.“
Jacobus de Voragine then goes on to explain that another reason “for the observance of Septuagesima is that it represents the seventy years the children of Israel spent in captivity in Babylon, when they hung up their lyres and said: ‘How shall we sing the Lord‘s song in a foreign land?‘“ (ibid., p. 133).
“So we also, in Septuagesima, put aside our songs of praise. But then, when in the sixtieth year Cyrus gave them leave to return home, they began to rejoice, and we too, on Holy Saturday, as it were in the sixtieth year, sing Alleluia to recall their joy. They, however, had to work hard getting ready for the return journey and putting their baggage together, and we add to the Alleluia the tract which recalls that labor. Then on Easter Saturdy, the last day of Septuagesima, we sing two Alleluias, symbolizing the fullness of joy with which they arrived in their own land.
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 133
The time of captivity and exile of the children of Israel also represents the time of our own pilgrimage, because as they were set free in the sixtieth year, we are liberated in the sixth age of the world. As they worked hard to get their bundles ready, so we also, freed as we are, must labor to fulfill the commandments. But when we shall have come into our true homeland, all labor will cease, our glory will be complete, and we shall sing a double Alleluia in body and soul.
In this time of exile, therefore, the Church, weighed down with many troubles and almost driven to despair, with deep sighs cries out in her liturgy, saying: ‘The sorrows of death have surrounded me.‘“
“It was the first year of Darius son of Artaxerxes, a Mede by race who assumed the throne of Chaldaea. In the first year of his reign I, Daniel, was studying the scriptures, counting over the number of years – as revealed by the LORD to the prophet Jeremiah – that were to pass before the desolation of Jerusalem would come to an end, namely seventy years. I turned my face to the Lord God begging for time to pray and to plead, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.“
Daniel 9: 1-3
Sexagesima, and the number 60
The upcoming Sunday is the Sunday of Sexagesima. Jacobus de Voragine tells us that the time of Sexagesima “begins on the Sunday when the introit Exsurge, quare obdormis Domine is sung, and ends on the Wednesday after Easter“ (ibid., p. 134).
“Sexagesima (sixtieth day) signifies the time of the Church‘s widowhood and her grief at the absence of her Spouse, because a sixtieth part of the crop is owed to widows. To console the widowed Church for the absence of her Spouse, who has been carried off to heaven, two wings are given to her, namely, the practice of the six works of mercy and the fulfillment of the Ten Commandments. Now sexagesima means 60 – 6 times 10 – the 6 standing for the six works of mercy and the 10 for the Decalogue. (…)
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 134
Sexagesima signifies not only the time of widowhood, but also the mystery of our redemption. The number 10 stands for man, who is the tenth drachma, because man was created to make up for the ruin of the nine angelic orders. Or 10 means man because his body is composed of four humors and in his soul he has three powers – memory, intellect, and will – which were made to serve the most Blessed Trinity, enabling us to believe in the three Persons faithfully, to love them fervently, and to keep them always in memory. The number 6 represents the six mysteries through which man, 10, is redeemed: they are Christ‘s incarnation, birth, passion, descent into hell, resurrection, and ascension into heaven.“
The theme of widowhood might bring the widow Judith to mind, a figure often understood as representing the Church. The traditional practice of Lent was to fast every day (with only one satisfying meal per day) except for Sundays.
“She wore sackcloth next to the skin and dressed in widow‘s weeds. She fasted every day of her widowhood except for the Sabbath eve, the Sabbath itself, the eve of New Moon, the festival of New Moon and the joyful festivals of the House of Israel.“
Judith 8: 5-6
Quinquagesima, and the number 50
“Quinquagesima lasts from the Sunday on which the introit Esto mihi in Deum protectorem is sung until Easter Sunday. (…)
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 135-136
(…) we ought to fast for forty days as Christ did, but in Lent there are only thirty-six fast days because there is no fasting on Sundays. (…) Therefore, to supply for the Sundays, four days of fast were added before Lent. Then the clergy, seeing that as they were ahead of the people by their ordination, they should also be ahead of them by their holiness, began to fast and abstain for two more days in addition to the added four. Thus a whole week was added before Lent and was called Quinquagesima, and Pope Telesphorus confirmed this, as Ambrose tells us.
Secondly, Quinquagesima signifies the time of remission, i.e., a season of penance in which everything is forgiven. Every fiftieth year was a jubilee year, a year of remission, because all debts were remitted, slaves were freed, and every man recovered his own property. (…)
Quinquagesima represents not only the time of remission, but the state of beatitude. In the fiftieth year slaves were set free; on the fiftieth day after the lamb was sacrificed, the Law was given; the fiftieth day after Easter the Holy Spirit was sent. Therefore the number 50 represents beatitude – the receiving of freedom, knowledge of the truth, and perfection of charity. (…)
Quinquagesima, as we have said, ends on Easter Sunday, because penance makes us rise to newness of life. During Quinquagesima the Fiftieth Psalm, the Miserere, is very frequently recited.“
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your merciful love; according to your great compassion, blot out my offences. O wash me completely from my guilt, and cleanse me from my sin.“
Psalm 50 (51): 3-4; 12
“Create a pure heart for me, O God; renew a steadfast spirit within me.“
“You will declare this fiftieth year to be sacred, and proclaim the liberation of all the inhabitants of the land. You will keep this as a jubilee: each of you will return to his ancestral property, each to his own clan. This fiftieth year will be a jubilee year for you; in it you will not sow, you will not harvest the grain that has come up on its own or in it gather grapes from your untrimmed vine. The jubilee will be a holy thing for you; during it you will eat whatever the fields produce.“
Leviticus 25: 10-12
Quadragesima, and the number 40
“For Quadragesima, the first Sunday of Lent, the introit Invocavit me is sung.“
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 137
“(…) we fast at this time, in order to permit our escape from Egypt and Babylonia (…).
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 138
As the Israelites, before they ate the paschal lamb, chastised themselves by eating wild bitter lettuces, so we ought to chastise ourselves by doing penance, in order to be worthy to eat the Lamb of life.“
Jacobus de Voragine cites Saint Gregory the Great, who gives the following reasons for a fast of 40 days – besides the obvious correspondence to the 40 days of Christ‘s fasting in the wilderness and to the 40 years of Israel‘s wanderings through the desert before crossing over the Jordan into the promised land:
“‘Why is the number 40 retained for the fast, unless it is that the power of the Decalogue reaches its fullness through the four books of the holy Gospel? Moreover, we subsist by the four elements in this mortal body, and we contravene the Lord‘s commandments by indulging the body.
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 138
Therefore, since we have violated the precepts of the Decalogue in yielding to the desires of the flesh, it is right that we should castigate the flesh 4 x 10 times over. (…)‘“
“He stayed there with the LORD for forty days and forty nights, eating and drinking nothing, and on the tablets he wrote the words of the covenant – the Ten Words. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, as he was coming down the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face was radiant because he had been talking to him.“
Exodus 34: 28-29
“Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert, for forty days being put to the test by the devil.“
Luke 4: 1-2
