Septuagesima versus "Ordinary Time"

The one thing the average Catholic - and even a halfway-informed non-Catholic - knows about Vatican II is that "it changed the Mass". But even today, nearly forty-five years after the close of the Council, Catholics are amazed to learn that many of the elements of the "new" Mass which visibly differentiate it from the "traditional" Mass were either not mandated by the Council or even contrary to Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Council's "Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy".

I am not alone in asserting that the post-Conciliar reforms - perhaps it would be more accurate to refer to them as "re-forms" - did incalculable damage to the Catholic Church. Indeed, Pope Benedict XVI has expressed himself on this subject many times, both in his years as Cardinal and - less bluntly of course - as Pope. After nearly five years on the Throne of Peter one can readily discern the twin themes of Christian Unity and restoring Catholic Identity in nearly all of his acts. Manifestly he has his work cut out for him.

The liturgical revolution was particularly responsible for shattering a once-unified sense of Catholic identity and decimating the influence of Catholic culture in our societies, both in Catholic Europe and secular America. Although I grew up during these tumultuous years it wasn't until I returned almost exclusively to the traditional Mass about ten years ago that I gradually began to understand how much damage the changes to the liturgical calendar had wrought in these areas.

This morning, preparing to herd the gang off to Mass, I glanced at the calendar and realized that it was Septuagesima, the beginning of the pre-Lenten season which unaccountably vanished some time around 1970. This, despite the Council's instruction that "the traditional customs and discipline of the sacred seasons shall be preserved or restored... their specific character is to be retained, so that they duly nourish the piety of the faithful...", not to mention the five paragraphs in Sacrosanctum Concilium about Lent itself.

The two great feasts of the Christian faith, Easter and Christmas, are both preceeded by seasons of penitential observance and preparation. One wonders whether modern liturgists, given carte blanche, would have have rescheduled them exactly six months apart to "balance" the liturgical year. It's not so far-fetched, nothing was untouchable to these guys*. Thankfully they never got around to that particular "improvement" and so we're stuck with the traditional dates. As such, the interval between Christmastide and Lent can be quite short, especially in a year when Easter is early. Rather than letting us fetch up abruptly at the doorstep of Lent on Ash Wednesday, Holy Mother Church in Her wisdom has given us the season of Septuagesima to help us make a thoughtful and gradual transition into Lent. While individual Catholics do not observe Lenten mortifications during this period, we are gradually reoriented toward the austerities of Lent by the more somber presentation of the liturgy - violet vestments are worn, and both the Alleluia and the Gloria are omitted as during Lent.

It is interesting to note that the Eastern Churches, both Catholic and Orthodox, retain a three-week "pre-Lenten" period before the beginning of the "Great Lent". There is little question that this tradition, and the Western observance of Septuagesima, both find their origin in early Christian practice. Funny, isn't it, that along with liturgical "renewal" another of the hallmarks of Vatican II was ecumenism? Perhaps one must be a specially-trained liturgist to understand how the practical abolition of Septuagesima serves either to promote unity with the Orthodox or to fulfill the mandate of Sacrosanctum Conclilium to preserve and restore traditional customs and disciplines. As the late Michael Davies might say, "well, it's a point of view!"

In Martin Mosebach's wonderful book The Heresy of Formlessness he referred to the liturgy as "lived religion". I'm not sure the phrase is original to Mosebach, but it's definitely apt. If the liturgy is not permitted to permeate our lives, or if it is drastically pruned of the externals which have for centuries marked the passage of our years, it will fail to inspire us toward the fullest possible appreciation of the sacred mysteries it embodies. In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye tells us "because of our traditions, every one of us knows who he is, and what God expects him to do". We Catholics are the spiritual descendents of the Jews, are we not likewise entitled to retain - and cherish - the worthy traditions which our Church has given us to help guide us through our earthly pilgrimage?

Our sense of identity as Catholics is impovershed, as is our culture, by the loss of the pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima. We should pray that Pope Benedict's liturgical restoration will ultimately include the restoration of the traditional elements of the liturgical calendar which enrich our lives and draw us closer to God.

UPDATE - There's a nice post on Septuagesima over on the New Liturgical Movement, including an analysis from the estimable Father F. X. Weiser, S.J. which I'd not seen before. (Amongst his other accomplishments, Fr. Weiser was pastor of Holy Trinity in Boston in the 1940's)

*The Consilium - the post-Conciliar body charged with implementing the liturgical renewal - actually considered moving the date of Christmas and also proposed changing the duration of Lent by moving Ash Wednesday to a Sunday! Imagine, singing that well known hymn "Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Thirty-six Days". This "nothing sacred" attitude toward our traditions lives on in the episcopal conferences who have routinely transferred the Feast of the Epiphany to the Sunday between January 2nd-8th, resulting in a generation of Catholics who have no idea that the "Twelve Days of Christmas" has anything to do with the liturgical year...