Weekly Parish Email for Septuagesima Sunday: 16 February 2025

The Collect.

O LORD, we beseech thee favourably to hear the prayers of thy people; that we, who are justly punished for our offences, may be mercifully delivered by thy goodness, for the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Saviour, who liveth and, reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle. Corinthians ix. 24.

KNOW ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

The Gospel. St. Matt. xx. 1.

THE kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard, And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they like wise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

Rector’s Ramblings: Septuagesima Sunday and Gesimatide

One of the blessings we enjoy, as traditional Anglicans, is that our lectionary – indeed, our ecclesiastical calendar – has retained the ancient season of “Gesimatide,” or Pre-Lent. And with this Sunday, the third Sunday before Ash Wednesday in this year of Our Lord 2025, we enter into that 17-day season, which in some ways is one of my favorite seasons of the Church year… not least bcause of its somewhat quirky and mysterious name!

This Sunday, February 16th, is Septuagesima Sunday, next week will be Sexagesima, and the following week will be Quinquagesima, after which comes Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent proper. “Gesima” comes from a Latin word meaning “days,” and as of today, Septuagesima, there are – approximately, and including Sundays, which are not figured into the 40 days of Lent – approximately 70 days until the Feast of the Resurrection: that is, Easter.

According to Andrew Hughes, in Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office, “Septuagesima Sunday [is] so called because it falls within seventy days but more than sixty days before Easter. The next Sunday is within sixty, Sexagesima, and the next within fifty, Quinquagesima… Falling within forty days of Easter (excluding Sundays) the next Sunday is Quadragesima” – the first Sunday of Lent itself.

Because every Sunday recalls the resurrection of Christ, they are considered “little Easters,” and not treated as days of penance – or at least. Quadragesima serves as the Latin word for the season of Lent, which (not counting Sundays) is forty days long. Lent is, of course, a time of penitence and preparation; and Gesimatide, or pre-Lent, is the time when we prepare for the preparation, as it were: or as I have pointed out in years past, and will continue to point out, a time when we prepare for the spiritual journey which is the season of Lent.

Having a time of preparation for the time of preparation may seem a bit incongruous, even redundant; but it actually gives us a chance to shift our mental and spiritual gears, serving as a transition period between the joyful season of light which is the Nativity Cycle – including Epiphanytide, in which the Church

“concentrates on a number of incidents from Scripture that show how Jesus manifested God’s love to the world through His ministry of preaching, miracles, and healings, each of which makes known the identity and mission of Christ: True Man and True God, born into this sinful world to be the Lord and Savior of all humanity,”

as one source puts it – and the much more somber and penitential season of Lent, when we both repent of our own sins and ponder with wonder and gratitude the magnitude of Christ’s love for us, as demonstrated by His Passion and Crucifixion during Holy Week. Gesimatide gives us the ability to make this transition more gradually, rather than jumping from celebration to fasting and penitence, from the Incarnation of the divine, creative Word of God into this world in the Person of Christ, to His agony on the Cross, as He died for our sins.

So let us make use of this time of transition to refocus, redirect, and settle our attention, from who Christ our Lord was and is to us, to what He has done for us: and especially, to the mighty act of salvation He wrought for us by His suffering and death. As one one Roman Catholic source has pointed out, to draw closer to Jesus this year, let us make use of all three seasons: Gesimatide, Lent, and Passiontide. Each is a grade in the ascent of Calvary, on which Christ died for us. It goes on to add, “don’t flatten Lent into a forty-day pancake.”

That, it seems to me, is excellent advice!

Faithfully yours, in our crucified and risen Lord,

Fr. Tom Harbold