Gesimatide: A Little Season to Help Us Prepare for Our Lenten Penance

This past Sunday began the Pre-Lent Liturgical Season - Gesimatide in preparation for The Great Fast. I don't know about you but learning about this was very refreshing to me and has inspired me to take on more fasting and abstinence this Lent. 

Every year, the Church’s traditional calendar contains a natural transitionary period between Epiphany and Lent called Gesimatide, also known as pre-Lent or Shrovetide. Septuagesima is the name for the first Sunday in this in-between time that officially marks the ninth Sunday before Easter and the third Sunday before Ash Wednesday. The name Septuagesima is Latin for “seventy,” since the Sunday falls roughly seventy days before Easter.

Following Septuagesima are two other Sundays called Sexagesima and Quinquagesima, Latin for “sixty” and “fifty.” Accordingly, these Sundays also fall roughly sixty and fifty days before Easter, respectively. The seventeen-day period of Gesimatide also comprises the Carnival and Mardi Gras season, which culminates on Shrove (Fat) Tuesday. Quadragesima - 40 Days - referred to the 40 days of Lent.

Gesimatide is significant because it is meant to prepare Christians for the upcoming Lenten season and remind them that it is important to be spiritually and physically ready to observe the Church’s foremost period of penitence. By appropriately respecting and honoring the tradition of the pre-Lent Sundays, the early Church made it impossible for one to forget that Ash Wednesday is coming or to miss the beginning of Lent. Thank goodness!

In this way, Septuagesima marks the beginning of many Lenten practices in the home and the parish. The Alleluia and the Gloria are omitted during the Mass. Pastors don their purple vestments, and parishioners start to eat up the dairy and meat in the houses, making themselves ready for the coming fast. All in all, Gesimatide is characterized by the Christian’s whole body progressing towards the adoption of a more ascetic Lenten lifestyle.

A Brief History

The observance of Septuagesima and Gesimatide has been observed throughout the history of the Church, reaching back to at least the sixth century. With such a long history, it makes sense that this pre-penitential season has developed its own unique culture and flavor.

Sadly, the Septuagesima season was removed from the post-Vatican II liturgical calendar; the reason given was a call to greater simplicity, which was supposed to reemphasize the importance of Lent. Yet the very purpose of the Septuagesima season is to emphasize the importance of Lent. Instead of Lent sneaking up on us, we have a chance to prepare our hearts, minds, and bodies for the penances we will undertake during Lent. Vestments are violet, the alleluias and Gloria are omitted from the liturgy, and the overall tone of the liturgy becomes more penitential—all these changes signal to us that the time for penance is at hand.

Historically, Septuagesima has marked the beginning of Carnival, a celebration that lasts until Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. The roots of this celebration can be seen in its name, which comes from the Latin for carne levarium, or the “farewell to meat.” Thus, Septuagesima is the beginning of the Christian’s 17-day countdown to Lent, during which all the feasting foods in the house are consumed to prepare for the great fast.

Yet it also should be noted that the ancient Church’s emphasis on the importance of Septuagesima and its insistence upon the need to prepare for Lent presumes that the disciplines that Christians undertake for Lent are difficult and challenging for both the body and mind. As one source puts it, “one does not need weeks to get ready to give up chocolate, or to stop putting cream in one’s coffee.” However, the Church’s historic disciplines, such as fasting and almsgiving, do require some preparation and time to get one’s house in order. And that is exactly why there is a Septuagesima and a Gesimatide! (click here to watch two wonderful and inspirational videos about the reason for and the benefit of tradutional Lenten practices. Click here to read more about the former Lenten Practices).

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Sunday’s Epistle emphasizes the importance of physical penances while also reminding us of the need to ask for God’s grace when offering them. St. Paul writes that “I chastise my body and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway” (1 Cor 9:27). The Apostle sees the spiritual life as fundamentally a struggle; we must fight against both demonic forces as well as our own bodies if we are to advance in the spiritual life. And this battle is continual and not over until we reach union with God in heaven. St. John Chrysostom notes, “This war admits of no truce, does it? It has no set time for the assault, does it?” (Homilies on Genesis 22.22). Thus, Septuagesima begins the annual reminder the Church gives us that we must continue this struggle, never surrendering to the passions that continually assail us.

Yet St. Paul also gives us the means by which we have strength for this battle, the “spiritual food” and “spiritual drink” he mentions in verses 10:3-4. We give up physical food during Lent, but we can only do this efficaciously by consuming the ultimate spiritual food and drink, the Eucharist. All physical food is subject to corruption, but the spiritual food of the Eucharist is incorruptible. “Christ is in that sacrament, because the body is Christ’s. So the food is not corporeal but spiritual” (St. Ambrose, The Mysteries 56).

Septuagesima Sunday is a call to begin again. No matter how badly we have practiced the life of a Christian disciple in the past, as long as we are alive we can start over. That is what Christ is telling us in the parable we find in Sunday’s Gospel: the laborers who begin near the end of the day receive the same reward as those who have worked all day. This should give us great hope that no matter how much we have fallen in the past, the penitential season that begins with Septuagesima Sunday and continues on through Lent can be a time of renewed discipleship of the Lord.

Source: One Peter Five

Watch this video to learn about The Benefits of Traditional Lenten Practices.

Learn about the three principle reasons for more intense fasting and absitnence during Lent: 

1. Atonement for our sins

2. Detachment from created goods.

3. Greater union with God.

Think Lent is Tough? Take a Look at Medieval Lenten Practices

Today’s Latin Catholics would be well-served to review the norms of early Christians as they prepared for Easter.
The Lenten fast for Latin Catholics living in the years of the third millennium of Christianity often means swapping out the lunchtime burger for a Filet-o-Fish, and attending Stations of the Cross sporadically. But the Church has, up to the time of major reforms in the 1960s, encouraged its children to not do the bare minimum, but to immerse themselves in the spirit of Lenten penance.

The requirements and practices during the first millennium after Our Lord were extraordinarily stringent by today’s terms, having been relaxed bit by bit, until they are almost nonexistent today. Archbishop Lefebvre noted this in a letter written to faithful in 1982:

The faithful who have a true spirit of faith and who profoundly understand the motives of the Church…will wholeheartedly accomplish not only the light prescriptions of today but, entering into the spirit of Our Lord and of the Blessed Virgin Mary, will endeavor to make reparation for the sins which they have committed and for the sins of their family, their neighbors, friends and fellow citizens."

Today, only the Eastern Christian churches (many of which are not in communion with Rome) practice austerity during Lent, albeit unevenly. For instance, meat, fish, dairy, and oil are generally prohibited during the Lenten season, though there are few restrictions on the amount of Lenten-approved food that may be consumed. Moreover, certain fasting disciplines are subject to regional practice and cultural variations with local priests and bishops having more direct say in offering dispensations for those entrusted to their care.

Black Fasts and Watery Beer

We can learn much from our Latin ancestors’ observance of the Lenten Quadragesima and perhaps follow their example; if not entirely in practice, at least in spirit, as recommended by the Archbishop. In a recent post on his site, Dr. Taylor Marshall, a former Episcopalian priest who is now Catholic, collected the rules for Lenten penance as described by St. Thomas Aquinas:

• Ash Wednesday and Good Friday were “black fasts.” This means no food at all.
• Other days of Lent: no food until 3pm, the hour of Our Lord’s death. Water was allowed, and as was the case for the time due to sanitary concerns, watered-down beer and wine. After the advent of tea and coffee, these beverages were permitted.
• No animal meats or fats.
• No eggs.
• No dairy products (lacticinia) – that is, eggs, milk, cheese, cream, butter, etc.
• Sundays were days of less liturgical discipline, but the fasting rules above remained.

Bread, Salt, Vegetables

Essentially, medieval Western Christians subsisted on bread, vegetables and some salt during Lent. Fish was permitted, though uncommon. This was consistent with the desire of the Church for its faithful to refrain from flesh meat (St. Thomas equates Our Lord giving up His Flesh for us) and to strive for greater control over our own bodies, with abstinence from the marriage act as an additional form of self-mortification.

Beyond the daily penances, the Triduum was more severe than even the “Black Fast” mentioned earlier. The Good Friday fast began as early as sundown on Maunday Thursday, lasting through the noon hour on Holy Saturday – when the early Church performed the Easter Vigil.

But as early as 800 A.D., the 3pm fasting time was generally moved more towards noon. In fact, “noon” is a derivative of “Nones,” the 9th hour of the Divine Office, said at about 3pm. Why do we call 12pm “noon” and not 3pm? During Lent, the monasteries would often move the recitation of nones as early as 12pm, in order to provide the working monks and laborers an opportunity to break their fast earlier in the day. Hence the exclamation by exhausted brothers and laborers of “Nones!” entering the vernacular. A remnant of this shift is still detectable in the rubrics for reciting the Roman Breviary up until the 1960s; None was prescribed to be recited in the morning before Mass.

Cathedrals Built on Dairy

There is some confusion on the matter of dairy—some writings of early monks in the 6th century mentioned the taking of milk during Lent. Whether rules fluctuated or this was simply because of lack of any other food is unclear. But at least by the time of St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, this was a norm.

It is interesting to note, however, that records dating back to 900 A.D. show that German Catholics could receive permission to consume dairy in return for good works, or a contribution to a pious work – known as Butterbriefe. Several churches are said to have been partially built by the proceeds of such exemptions. One of the steeples of Rouen cathedral was for this reason known as the "Butter Tower."

This general prohibition of eggs and milk during Lent is perpetuated in the common custom of blessing or making gifts of eggs at Easter, and in the English usage of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday – a way to use up the eggs and milk before the Lenten fast. Hence the colloquial term still used by some today of “Pancake Tuesday.”

From Watered-Down Beer to Watered Down Penance

Gradually, papal indults would give way to an abrogation of these fasting rules on Sundays, and the allowance of meat at least once on all the days of Lent except Fridays and Ash Wednesday.

A small meal after the main “break fast” at Nones was eventually allowed in the evening, during which Cassian’s book Collationes was read, giving rise to the term "collation" used for the small snack allowed during fast days.

Finally, Pope Paul VI’s Apostolic Constitution Paenitemini reduced Lenten practice to two lines: No meat allowed on Fridays in Lent, and 1 meal with 2 collations allowed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

While Archbishop Lefebvre did not recommend a reverse to the practices of the 13th century, we can certainly take his words as encouragement to follow a more strict observance of the spirit of Lent.

Would we dare to say that this necessity is less important in our day and age than in former times? On the contrary, we can and we must affirm that today, more than ever before, prayer and penance are necessary because everything possible has been done to diminish and despise these two fundamental elements of Christian life.”

Sources: Dr. Taylor Marshall - Catholic Encyclopedia - sspx.org - 2018-02-21

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