Dominica in Septuagesima
Latin Mass 2020 • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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LESSON: Preparing to prepare
LESSON: Preparing to prepare
There is a great beauty to the traditional liturgical calendar, the one which existed and developed from the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great until 1970. Its beauty is perhaps most profoundly seen in its simplicity.
Most people would look at the post-conciliar calendar and call it simpler, with the removal of many saints’ feast days, the removal of certain seasons and octaves, but that is not what I’m referring to.
The simplicity of the traditional calendar is found in the fact that the entire year is centred around the two principal mysteries of our faith, the Incarnation and the Resurrection. Each liturgical year begins with the Christmas cycle which flows directly into the Pascal cycle that we begin today, without the intrusion of the rather clunky season of “Ordinary Time” in between (a season who’s name still cannot be explained)
Dom Gaspar Lefebvre (not to be confused with the other Lefebvre) puts it like this:
The Church, manifesting the divinity of Christ throughout the first part of the Ecclesiastical year, shows us in the second part what Our Lord has done to merit it for us and communicate it to us…
The beauty of the traditional calendar can also be seen in its understanding of human nature. The proper celebration of each of these two central mysteries requires spiritual preparation, and so the Church gives us seasons dedicated to prayer and penance before each, Advent before Christmas, and Lent before Easter.
Penance, especially rigorous penance is not something that you jump into feet first, it’s something that you need to work towards. So the Church, in Her wisdom, gives us another season, a season that allows us to prepare to prepare, Septuagesima (or pre-Lent) is that time, and so it’s time to start getting ready.
ILLUSTRATION: Penance should be hard
ILLUSTRATION: Penance should be hard
Now is the time when we should begin thinking and praying about how we will observe the coming Lenten season, but notice, that this pre-Lenten season presupposes that the penances we will be taking on will be hard, challenging ones.
Prior to the Second Vatican Council, this time of preparation for Lent went along with rules of fasting that were far stricter than they are today, when fasting was required every day of Lent with the exception of Sundays. Today, the Code of Canon Law lists Lent along with all the Fridays of the year as days of penance, but no penance is specifically prescribed for the Lenten season.
When Paul VI published his Apostolic Constitution Pænitemini, which changed the laws of fasting, his intention was that the mature Christian should be able to select his own appropriate penance. Unfortunately, today Lenten penance has been reduced to child’s play for many Catholics, giving up ice cream, not putting sugar in my coffee, or ethereal nonsense like, “my penance will be to love more.”
No, we are called to go above and beyond, we are called to subdue our passions and our lower natures. As St. Paul says in today’s Epistle:
“And every one that striveth for the mastery refraineth himself from all things. And they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown: but we an incorruptible one.
I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty: I so fight, not as one beating the air.
But I chastise my body and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway. “
We are called to celebrate the paschal mysteries as the New Man who has put on Christ and has put off the old ways of sin, and the only way to do that is through stern penances, not childish ones.
APPLICATION: Preparing well for Lent
APPLICATION: Preparing well for Lent
Now is the time to prepare for Lent, but we only have two and a half weeks of this pre-Lenten season. It will be gone before we know it, so we need to start getting ready.
In this instance looking to our Eastern Catholic brethren can provide a helpful illustration. Eastern Catholic maintain their own separate laws of fasting, and so they are still required to undertake full fasting and abstinence throughout Lent, however, their abstinence includes not just meat, but dairy products as well, they can only eat fruits, vegetables, and grains.
They are also beginning their pre-Lenten season today, but they are already practicing fasting, no abstinence yet, but full fasting. Beginning next week, they will give up meat, meaning they have to use up or freeze all of the meat in their house this week. Next week will be the same for dairy products, as those are given up on what we call Quinquagesima.
For us, this week could be spent thinking and praying about what penance we will undertake. If we have already decided, then we should use this week to consult with our spiritual director about that penance (a poorly chosen penance can do more harm than good to our spiritual life, and so it’s good to get an outside opinion).
Beginning next week, we should start to build towards the penance we have chosen. For those observing a strict fasting regimen, it’s time to start cutting back. For those Exodus 90 cold shower people, time to start gradually lowering the temperature of the water.
Whatever it is, once we have chosen well, we must prepare well so that we do not fail in our efforts once Lent has truly begun.
The Church, in Her great wisdom, knows human nature, knows that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, and so she has given us this time to prepare ourselves for the penances we will soon begin. Today when Our Lord comes to us in Holy Communion, ask Him for the grace to discern well what penance we should each take on this Lent, and ask Him for the grace to prepare for those penances well.