Bureaucratic Incompetence and the Abolition of Pre-Lent
This year in the traditional Roman Rite, as Easter is early, we have only three Sundays after Epiphany before Septuagesima. This short season of Pre-Lent had become an established part of the calendar in both the Eastern and Western Churches by the end of the sixth century,[1] and organically developed from the devotion of lay faithful and monastics. Dom Prosper Guéranger writes that the Church “gives us the three weeks of Septuagesima, during which she withdraws us, as much as may be, from the noisy distractions of the world, in order that our hearts may be the more readily impressed by the solemn warning she is to give us, at the commencement of Lent, by marking our foreheads with ashes.”[2] Pre-Lent, then, is the Church’s recognition that mental, physical and spiritual preparation for the fasting, penitence and almsgiving of Lent is vitally important for us—for so often, as Saint Paul says, “the willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.” (Romans 7:18).
Sadly, however, this ancient season of the Church’s year was abolished in the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms. Most of the faithful are now, as André Rose memorably put it, “parachuted straight into Lent on Ash Wednesday with no preparation whatsoever.”[3] How and why did this happen?
Coetus I was the study group of the Consilium[4] given responsibility for the reform of the liturgical calendar. In February 1965, some introductory questions about the reform of the Proper of Time were proposed to the study group, among which were some regarding the season of Septuagesima. Three options were thus proposed to the study group: (1) retaining Pre-Lent, but abolishing its “penitential character” (i.e., the use of violet vestments and no Gloria/Alleluia); (2) completely suppressing Pre-Lent and using its Sunday propers elsewhere in the liturgical year; (3) suppressing the titles and penitential character of Pre-Lent, but retaining its Sunday propers on the last three Sundays after Epiphany that occur before Lent begins.[5]
In the month following, the members met to discuss these questions, and we can see that there was some disagreement among them:
Rembert Van Doren: Another option could be added: (d) Septuagesimatide remains as the doorway to Lent, so that the transition, with a note of austerity, from tempus per annum (Epiphany) to a penitential season remains. If this solution cannot be accepted, we should approve what is said in (c): the formularies are used on the three Sundays before Lent, with the names and penitential character removed.
Aimé-Georges Martimort: Septuagesimatide should be abolished. Regarding the question proposed under letter (c), the decision concerns mainly the study groups responsible for the readings at Mass and the chants at Mass.
Pierre Jounel: I like proposition (b): Septuagesimatide is suppressed, but the formularies are used at another time.
Agostino Amore: (a) Negative. (b) Affirmative. (c) to be distinguished namely: (1) as far as possible, the readings from the Breviary be placed in the Season of Advent… (2) the readings from the Missal are able to remain there…
Herman Schmidt: Yes to (a) and (c), in that order. No to (b).
Ansgar Dirks: Yes to solution (c).
Adrien Nocent: Septuagesimatide ought to be abolished: not out of vain archaeologism but so that the faithful can see the progress of the liturgical year and not be disturbed by diverse “anticipations.” However, the formularies should be retained. The penitential name and character are to be abolished: the Gloria and Alleluia are to be said, the colour green to be used, etc.[6]
Even amidst this diversity of opinion, though, we can see that the majority of the group had already decided that Pre-Lent was to be abolished in one way or another, with only one member (Rembert Van Doren) thinking otherwise. One should also note, at this early stage, the comments of Aimé-Georges Martimort, who pointed out that the question of the orations, chants and readings were the responsibility of other study groups: this will be important later on.
In April 1965, the reasoning of Adrien Nocent—that Pre-Lent should be abolished to make the liturgical year clearer for the faithful—was spelled out by the group, who claimed that this season was “difficult for the faithful to understand, except through many explanations”:
The period of Septuagesima presents a difficulty.
It would please all the consultors if Septuagesimatide were to be suppressed as to its name and as to its penitential character (with only one thinking otherwise).
The penitential character of Septuagesimatide or Pre-Lent (the suppression of the Gloria and Alleluia, the colour violet) is difficult for the faithful to understand, except through many explanations. Currently, the exterior signs of a penitential season are used, as in Lent, but they are not retained for the sake of particular penance as in Lent. According to the mind of the liturgical Constitution, the arrangement of the liturgical year should be made clearer, by suppressing the penitential character of this season.
Regarding the names Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima: since these names are also used by some of the separated brethren, we must proceed cautiously in this matter, and promote discussions on this matter, as on others.[7]
Though there is no particular paragraph of Sacrosanctum Concilium cited here as justification for suppressing Pre-Lent, the most likely candidate is n. 107, which reads as follows:
The liturgical year is to be revised so that the traditional customs and discipline of the sacred seasons shall be preserved or restored to suit the conditions of modern times; their specific character is to be retained, so that they duly nourish the piety of the faithful who celebrate the mysteries of Christian redemption, and above all the paschal mystery.
It should be pointed out, however, that this is a very partial reading of the liturgy constitution: the abolition of Septuagesimatide is neither a preservation or restoration of the tradition of the Church, and it was not suggested by anyone present at Vatican II. Indeed, one Council Father, in his comments supporting the proposal to give the Proper of Time more priority over the Proper of Saints, lamented the fact that Pre-Lent, along with the other liturgical seasons, had in his opinion “become less important” (minor factus sit) to the faithful.[8]
At the fifth general meeting of the Fathers of the Consilium (26-30 April 1965), where a mere twenty of the thirty-seven members were present (along with forty periti), a vote was taken on the proposal to suppress the penitential character of Pre-Lent, “with the question of formularies untouched.” Only seventeen Fathers were present for this particular vote: twelve voted yes, three voted no, one voted yes “with modifications,” and one vote was declared null. It was further noted that “some [Fathers] expressed the desire that, after suppressing the penitential character of this season, the preparatory character for Lent should be preserved.”[9] By December 1965, Coetus I had taken this vote to suppress Pre-Lent as final, but with an important nota bene: “Provision is still to be made for the Sunday of the Baptism of the Lord and for the Sundays of the former Septuagesimatide.”[10] So, at this stage, the consensus was for the third option discussed at the beginning of the study group’s work: the titles and penitential character of Pre-Lent would be suppressed, but its Sunday propers retained on the last three Sundays after Epiphany that occur before Lent begins.
However, contrary to the nota bene, which would have ensured that the orations, readings and chants of Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima would have some place in the reformed Missal, the study group did not make any provision in their calendar regarding a special status for the last three Sundays of Epiphanytide. Further, as Aimé-Georges Martimort had already pointed out in March 1965, the question of the Mass propers was the responsibility of other study groups.[11] The outcome, as Lauren Pristas notes,[12] was that since Coetus I did not provide a space in their reformed calendar for the former Pre-Lent propers to occupy, the season completely disappeared, contrary to the intentions of all concerned. Indeed, as late as November 1967, the study group continued to maintain that at least some of the texts of Pre-Lent would have a place in the reformed liturgy, even though this was not their area of responsibility and even though they had failed to provide such a place for these texts!
As for the so-called Septuagesimatide…pastoral experience shows that it is very difficult to talk about it to the people, and even then, proportionate fruits are not obtained. Indeed, this period is in some way a detriment to Lent: in fact, the anticipation of certain penitential elements specific to Lent takes away from it the “note of newness” and therefore a part of its pastoral impact. Finally, it is worth remembering that the biblical and euchological texts of this period will not be omitted, but placed elsewhere in the Roman Missal.[13]
Is this last statement about the prayers and readings of Septuagesimatide finding their way to other places in the Roman Missal in any way accurate? Simply put, no. Of the nine Pre-Lenten Sunday orations in the traditional liturgy, only the following have any place in the post-Vatican II Missal:
It is striking that none of the traditional collects for Pre-Lent are contained in the modern Roman Missal at all. This means that the petition contained in the collect for Septuagesima Sunday, “that we who are justly afflicted for our sins may be mercifully freed for the sake of the glory of your name,”[15] is completely absent: moreover, there is no longer any oration in the Novus Ordo Missal that describes the faithful as “afflicted” by sin. It seems this notion was too “difficult” an idea for “modern man.”
As far as the readings go, it is true that most of them, or their content, have found a place in the voluminous reformed lectionary, but often not on Sundays, where the vast majority of the faithful would actually hear them. In September 1966, Coetus I stated that “The readings for the Sunday Masses of the season of Septuagesima were very well chosen. They will take their place in the three-year cycle of readings…”[16] This assertion cannot be said to be accurate. Moreover, the readings have been scattered to the four winds, destroying their devotional associations with not just the pre-Lenten period but also between the lections themselves:
Ultimately, Pre-Lent seems to have been a season that the Consilium did not quite know what they wanted to do with. The outcome—through a mixture of accident and bureaucratic incompetence—was that it was abolished, with its readings scattered across the liturgical year and nearly all its prayers removed entirely, contrary to the desires of Coetus I and the Fathers of the Consilium. It is fair, I think, to say that it was the victim of an overly rationalist approach to the liturgical reform[17]—an approach that, however, is not consistent across the reformed Missal. For example, special Mass propers and readings are assigned to the final days of Advent (December 17-24), to emphasize its end and help the faithful prepare for the celebration of Christmas. This is obviously not considered to be a “detriment” to Advent, so one is at a loss to explain why the reformers thought Pre-Lent needed to be abolished “in order to restore Lent to its full importance.”[18] Thankfully, we still have this vital preparatory period in the traditional Roman Rite, as well as in the liturgy of the Personal Ordinariates in Divine Worship: The Missal.
Endnotes
[1] For more on the history of Pre-Lent, see Camille Callewaert, “L’oeuvre liturgique de s. Grégoire: La Septuagésime et l’Alléluia,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 33 (1937), pp. 306-326; Henri de Villiers, “Le temps d’Avant-Carême (Septuagésime) dans les liturgies chrétiennes: antiquité & universalité,” Schola Sainte Cecile, February 16, 2014 (https://schola-sainte-cecile.com/2014/02/16/le-temps-davant-careme-septuagesime-dans-les-liturgies-chretiennes-antiquite-universalite/); Peter Day-Milne, “The Bookends of the Paschal Cycle, Part I—Septuagesimatide: A Sensible Approach to the Desert Days of Lent,” Adoremus Bulletin Insight, January 28, 2021 (https://adoremus.org/2021/01/the-bookends-of-the-paschal-cycle-part-i-septuagesimatide-a-sensible-approach-to-the-desert-days-of-lent-2/).
[2] Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year. Volume 4: Septuagesima (3rd ed.; London: Burns & Oates, 1909), p. 2.
[3] André Rose, “The Problems of the Liturgical Reform,” in Alcuin Reid (ed.), Looking Again at the Question of the Liturgy with Cardinal Ratzinger (Farnborough: Saint Michael’s Abbey Press, 2002), pp. 87-97, at p. 91. It should be noted that Rose was a member of several of the Consilium study groups, including the one responsible for the reform of the prayers and prefaces of the Roman Missal, Coetus XVIII bis, and thus was arguably in a position to at least ask Coetus I about provision for pre-Lenten Sundays in the calendar.
[4] The Consilium was the body constituted to propose liturgical reforms consequent to the second Vatican Council. It was subdivided into smaller study groups which focused on particular facets of the liturgical reform.
[5] Consilium ad exsequendam, Schema 61 (De Calendario, 1), February 12, 1965, pp. 2-3:
“Regarding Septuagesimatide, the following solutions are proposed:
(a) either the names and formularies of the Sundays from Septuagesima to Quinquagesima are kept, but the penitential character of this time is abolished;
(b) or Septuagesimatide is suppressed, and its formularies are used at another time;
(c) or Septuagesimatide is suppressed, but the formularies (with their names and penitential character removed; the Gloria, Alleluia, etc. said) are used on the last three Sundays before Lent, omitting, if necessary, other post-Epiphany formularies.”
[6] Consilium ad exsequendam, Schema 65 (De Calendario, 2), March 15, 1965, p. 15.
[7] Consilium ad exsequendam, Schema 75 (De Calendario, 4), April 10, 1965, p. 2.
[8] Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II. Volumen I: Periodus prima. Pars II: Congregationes generales X-XVIII (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1970), p. 753. The entire Acta of Vatican II has been digitised and is freely available to read and download via https://archive.org/details/second-vatican-council.
[9] Consilium ad exsequendam, Schema 93 (De Calendario, 5), May 10, 1965, p. 2. The null vote asked for an album, i.e., a “white paper,” an concise report meant to help people understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision.
[10] Consilium ad exsequendam, Schema 132 (De Calendario, 7), December 3, 1965.
[11] Namely Coetus XI for the readings at Mass, Coetus XIV for the chants, and Coetus XVIII bis for the Missal prayers and prefaces.
[12] Lauren Pristas, “Parachuted into Lent: The Suppression of Septuagesima,” Usus Antiquior 1.2 (2010), pp. 95-109, at p. 101: “the calendar coetus, most of whose consultors said they wanted the Septuagesima formularies retained, failed to provide the necessary apparatus, so to speak, for the coetus responsible for formularies to retain them. There is no niche in the calendar in which to place preparatory texts so that they would be used every year immediately before Lent.”
[13] Consilium ad exsequendam, Schema 260 (De Calendario, 16), November 30, 1967, p. 4. This schema is an Italian translation (and slight expansion) of Schema 225 (De Calendario, 14), April 18, 1967, itself a revision of Schema 213 (De Calendario, 12), March 1, 1967.
[14] “Centonization” is the technical term for the combination of parts of two or more existing prayers or other sources (e.g. biblical, patristic) to create a newly-composed prayer. It is a compositional technique that was used with some regularity by the post-Vatican II liturgical reformers.
[15] In the 1962 Missal, this petition is repeated in the fifth collect of Ember Saturday in Advent and the fourth collect of Ember Saturday in Lent.
[16] Consilium ad exsequendam, Schema 188 (De Calendario, 11), Addenda, September 22, 1966, p. 5.
[17] In a particularly depressing example of this rationalism and literalism, as part of their justification for abolishing Pre-Lent the risible claim was made by Coetus I that the names of the Sundays were too difficult for the faithful to understand: “Although the names are traditional, it is difficult to understand their meaning, since the Sundays constitute the 47th, 54th and 61st days respectively before the sacred triduum” (Schema 188 [De Calendario, 11], Addenda, September 22, 1966, p. 5). Incredibly, the non-official commentary in the reformed Calendarium Romanum (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1969) doubles-down on this, asking the question “how exactly are the words Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima pronounced?” (p. 58: quid admodum sonant voces Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima?)
[18] Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990), p. 307 fn. 6.
TITLE IMAGE: Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard [Gospel for Septuagesima], Rembrandt (1606–1669).
Satan Sowing Tares, c. 1530-1560, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp.
Healing the Blind Man, Václav Mánes (1793–1858).