There is an odd rubric at the back of the 2019 Book of Common Prayer: “The last three Sundays before Lent may be observed as Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima.”[1] When I first encountered this direction, it confused me. Having grown up in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and then transitioning to the Anglican Church in North America long after the seismic changes to the liturgical calendar in the 60s and 70s, I had never encountered Gesimatide or the season of Pre-Lent. As far as I knew, there was a seamless transition between Epiphanytide – culminating in the Feast of the Transfiguration – and the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday. What then were these oddly named Sundays? If the Prayer Book allows us to observe them, how would we go about that? How were they observed in the past? These are the questions that I set out to answer this year.
Traditionally, at least since the time of St. Gregory the Great, the Church (both East and West) has understood that the rigors of Lent necessitated a time of preparation. As the noted Anglican blogger, Laudable Practice, has observed: “It is precisely because Lent is arduous, precisely because it does call us to the concrete practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, that we need a time of preparation: time to prepare for changes to domestic routine and schedules to allow for additional devotional exercises; time to prepare for changes to our diet and eating habits; to prepare for the giving of money and time in service of the poor.”[2] This time of preparation is Gesimatide.
One of the primary aids for this preparation were the readings for the three Sundays preceding Lent in the ancient Western lectionary (preserved in the classic Prayer Book Tradition). The Lenten journey is not an easy sprint, but rather a marathon that requires intense discipline – analogous to the entire Christian life. On Septuagesima (three Sundays before Lent and roughly 70 days before Easter) the congregation was exhorted to “run that they may obtain the prize” and to “subject their bodies to discipline” (1 Cor 9:24, 27). On Sexagesima (two Sundays before Lent and roughly 60 days before Easter) the congregation is confronted by Jesus’ parable of the sower and the seed as well as the travails of Paul’s service for Christ. The message is clear: prepare your soul to be tilled by persecution that it may be good soil for the Word. Finally, on Quinquagesima (the final Sunday before Lent and roughly 50 days before Easter), the congregation is reminded that all their works for the Lord – all their fasting and almsgiving – are worth nothing if they are not done in love: “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Cor 13:3).
Gesimatide is about far more than changing the liturgical colors (although, in the Western ceremonial, the color did change to violet); it is about preparation for the great fast of Lent. We do not go into the wilderness with our Lord for forty days unprepared, lest we fail to persevere in our disciplines. Therefore, in my own parish this year, we will be observing Gesimatide with the 2019 BCP. But if the season was shaped by the ancient lectionary, is it possible to actually observe the season with the modern lectionary? How can we mark the shift more meaningfully than merely changing the colors? Although the modern lectionary does not posit itself as emphasizing these themes of preparation, after a close read of the texts appointed, I believe that the ethos of the season remains hidden in plain sight in these final Sundays of Epiphany, World Mission Sunday, and the Feast of Transfiguration. Allow me to explain.
Lent is about the subjugation of the flesh to the end of unification with Christ: sanctification. It is about, as St. Paul says, “being transformed into the same image [of Christ] from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18). It is interesting to note that this passage from 2 Corinthians is appointed to be read at the end of Epiphany in Year B (during Gesimatide). Moreover, the word Paul uses for transformation is the same word used in the Gospels for transfiguration (μεταμορφόω).[3] Epiphany, in the modern lectionary, culminates each year with the Feast of the Transfiguration. And yet, the modern calendar has two feasts of the Transfiguration. Just as Holy Cross commemorates different facets of the crucifixion than Good Friday, so, too, Transfiguration in Epiphany has a different emphasis than its traditional feast on August 6th. Standing at the precipice of Lent on Quinquagesima Sunday, it shows us that the entire season of Lent is a season of transfiguration. We must prepare ourselves to be transfigured into the image of Christ and his glory.
I have no idea if the framers of the Modern Lectionary or the 2019 Book of Common Prayer had the traditional Gesimatide in mind when they arranged the lessons. Yet, whether intentional or not, the themes are there, and so, I would encourage those like me who utilize the modern lectionary to embrace this season of pre-Lenten preparation.
Because Lent is an arduous season of transfiguration, we must “forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead: the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13b-14, Year A, Transfiguration Sunday Quinquagesima). The striving that Paul refers to is not merely our Lenten disciplines. Rather, these disciplines prepare us for true discipleship: the discipline of blood. We discipline our bodies that we might one day be counted worthy to join those “coming out of the great tribulation; [those who have] washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb” (Revelation 7:14, Year B, World Mission Sunday Sexagesima). This is the call of discipleship that we are to baptize new believers into – the true great commission of Christ. A discipleship to the bitter end that is only possible because Christ is with us, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20, Year B, World Mission Sunday Sexagesima).
But even this calling to sanctifying transformation, to the discipline of blood by “delivering up our bodies to be burned” profits nothing if it is not borne out of a faith formed by love (1 Corinthians 13:2-3, Year C, Feast of the Transfiguration Quinquagesima) because the heart is deceitful above all things and will desire to pervert our Lenten disciplines that through them we may pummel our bodies not into the likeness of Christ, but evermore into our own sick and fallen likeness (Jeremiah 17:9, Year C, 6th Sunday of Epiphany Septuagesima 2025). Therefore, our call, as we prepare for this Lenten season, is that we may be like “trees planted by the waterside, that will bring forth [our] fruit in due season“ (Psalm 1:3, Year C, 6th Sunday of Epiphany Septuagesima 2025). That fruit is the sanctifying transfiguration into the image and likeness of Christ, a brilliant likeness that will burst forth like lamps shining in the midst of this present darkness until the day dawns and the morning star arises in the east (2 Peter 1:19, Year B, The Feast of the Transfiguration Quinquagesima).
Notes
- Anglican Church in North America, Book of Common Prayer 2019, The Calendar of the Christian Year, pg. 689. ↑
- Laudable Practice, “Why We Need Gesima-tide: Because Lent is about Concrete Practices,” February 10, 2020: http://laudablepractice.blogspot.com/2020/02/why-we-need-gesima-tide-because-lent-is.html ↑
- Matthew 17:2 and Mark 9:2 ↑
