SEASON OF SEPTUAGESIMA
>From "The St. Andrew Daily Missal" (1937)

     The Septuagesima season always begins with the ninth week before Easter
and includes three Sundays called respectively Septuagesima, Sexagesima and
Quinquagesima. These names which were borrowed from the numeral system of
the time, denote a series of decades working back from the commencement of
Lent, which is known in Latin as Quadragesima.

    Easter is a movable feast and can be kept, according to the year in
which it occurs, between March 22 and April 25. When it falls early the
Septuagesima season encroaches on the time after Epiphany, some Sundays of
which are then kept between the twenty-third and the last Sunday after
Pentecost.

    This liturgical period is a prelude to Lent and a remote preparation for
Easter. It serves as a time of transition for the soul, which must pass from
Christmas joys to the stern penance of the sacred forty days. Even if the
fast is not yet of obligation, the colour of the vestments worn is already
violet. As during Advent, the recital of the Gloria in excelsis is
suspended, since this hymn which celebrated Christ's birth in our mortal
flesh, is reserved to extol Him when born in His undying body, i.e. when He
rises from the tomb. "Born once of the Virgin, thou art now reborn from the
sepulcre," will then be the cry of the Church. Again the Martyrology
introduces Septuagesima Sunday as that on which "we lay aside the song of
the Lord which is Alleluia." "How, said the people of Israel, "shall we sing
the song of the Lord in a strange land?"

    This "strange land" is for the people of Christ, the world, which is a
place of exile, while the Alleluia, the chant St. John heard in heaven, will
begin again in the liturgy at Paschaltide, which represents the future life.
In the Easter festivities we shall hail our Lord, the conqueror of Satan,
who while freeing us from the bondage of sin, will re-open to us the
heavenly kingdom. The season of Lent which lasts for forty days
(Quadragesima) and that of Septuagesima which is made up of the following
periods of ten days (Quinquagesima, Sexagesima and Septuagesima) may well be
taken as representing the seventy years passed by Israel in exile under the
harsh captivity of the Babylonians. The chant of Alleluia is silent during
this period in which the spirit and very name remind us so strongly, that we
are "poor banished children. . . mourning and weeping in this vale of tears"
(Salve Regina).

    The Season of Septuagesima ends in the Temporal Cycle on Ash Wednesday.
In the Sanctoral Cycle its extreme limit is March 10, that is, when Easter
falls on April 25.

I'm pretty strict with calories already, but will probably be cutting out snacking between meals, even though usually I only snack on fruit.

Music is going to be my major penance- I'm in the middle of a month-long music "fast" and will probably do the same over Lent. It's torture lol!

Rather than just deny myself material things, I'll probably make some spiritual resolutions too- such as doing an extra decade a day, or aiming to do my spiritual reading properly and without distractions! One of our priests recommended that we spend more effort on spiritual exercises rather than bodily mortifications, although of course both are great.