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Above: the burying of the Alleluia.
The Lord measures out perfection neither by the multitude of our deeds, but by the manner in which we perform them. – St. John of the Cross
Each year Lent almost sneaks up on our busy family. But in her wisdom Mother Church has provided a reminder for preparation and discernment for the coming of Lent in the Season of Septuagesima or Shrovetide. Shove is the past tense of the word shrive which means to confess and be absolved for our sins. Commencing three Sundays before Ash Wednesday, Septuagesima Sunday begins the span to make preparations for Lent, seek our confession, and cement the Lenten Disciplines for the present year. Shrovetide is a much needed transition from the close of the Christmas Cycle at Candlemas on February 2nd to the somber penance of Lent. And since this brief season can fall between January 18th and February 22nd, it sometimes overlaps with the winding down of Christmas.
As the traditional Latin name for Lent is Quadragesima for fortieth, the title Septuagesima is similarly taken from the Latin word for seventieth and both marks 70(ish) days until Easter and signifies the 70 year Babylonian Captivity. Likewise, the following two remaining Sundays of Shrovetide are called Sexagesima and Quinquagesima for sixtieth and fiftieth in Latin.
Every Lent we pray our efforts build on the spiritual progress of the previous year. So by Ash Wednesday we want to have our Lenten Disciplines set for ourselves and our family. We want these disciplines to be intentional towards the purpose of rooting out our vices, specifically our present Predominant Fault, and Shrovetide is the Church’s distinctive period set aside for that discernment. If it is unknown at this time, Our Lady of Sorrows and our Guardian Angels are some intercessors we pray will reveal our Predominant Fault before Lent begins. And in seasons when our Predominant Fault is unmistakable, we look for a saint who struggled and overcame the same vice that we may befriend them during Lent and seek their unique intercession.
In our home each of these three weeks of Shrovetide is devoted to discerning the inclusion of its own penance of prayer, fasting, or almsgiving for the coming Lent. Splitting the planning up helps me not be overwhelmed with possibilities and be more realistic with what we will actually be able to stick to for the whole season.
These are a few other ways we get our family Ash Wednesday ready…
Bury the “Alleluia”
On Septuagesima Sunday the “Alleluia” is removed in the Sacrifice of the Mass and Divine Office until the Easter Vigil. Historically this departure has been represented by physically burying a symbol of the Alleluia in the form of a wooden plaque or banner within a small coffin-like box. This ritual traditionally takes place on the Saturday before Septuagesima Sunday immediately following Vespers. This Office of Vespers is when the final Alleluia before Lent is chanted. After the closing blessing of Vespers all process out with the Alleluia and watch as their fellow monks or the altar boys dig a hole and bury it in the ground. Some parishes also keep this custom by hiding their Alleluia under the linen of what will become the Altar of Repose on Maundy Thursday.
Our family continues this tradition by praying that final Office of Vespers here and burying a large wooden letter A on which I painted the word “Alleluia.” This later becomes part of our decorations for Eastertide. We’re still looking for a wooden box that is the right size so we currently just put our Alleluia in a ziploc bag before we bury it in one of the garden tubs. Your family could work in this tradition on Septuagesima Sunday, or even add it to your Shrove Tuesday festivities, by using this printable Alleluia and a flower pot. Once buried, the word for “Alleluia” in our home becomes “Jalapeno” until Easter. Not sure why the word starts coming up so often in Lent, but it does. This substitute also allows us to still practice upcoming music, including our traditional Easter morning procession of “O Filii et Filiae” and the like.
Make a Family Appointment for Confession
Shrovetide is the time to check our hearts and get them set right before Lent begins. We don’t want any sin impeding the grace and merit of our Lenten penance. Many parishes have a special week-night confession time held late in Lent, which are wonderful, additional opportunities to utilize. However, the Catechism of St. Pius X tells us that Mortal sin, “deprives [the soul] of merits already acquired, and renders it incapable of acquiring new merits.” It is like the plaque that blocks the grace-filled blood from the arteries of our soul. For most of us, Lent is the time of year when we are able to offer up the greatest amount of sacrifice and we don’t want to accidentally squander it because of poor planning. So give your parish a call if they don’t keep regular confession hours and get a spot on the calendar for all your eligible family members to receive this “Sacrament of His Merciful Love.” Reserving the Saturday before Ash Wednesday has worked well for us.
Pick and Post All Family and Individual Penances
For our family, Lenten Disciplines consist of amendments of life, sacrifices to offer up, and crosses to take up in their place (more on this to come in the near future). Once we have discerned which vice (our Predominant Fault) we need to focus on this year, we determine which sacrifices will combat it best. Then we post our family’s list of all penances in a prominent place as a “Memento Lento” to remember them. Yes, we know “Lento” means slow, not Lent, in Latin – but our children love that it rhymes and the connection with Memento Mori. The refrigerator gets a lot of traffic around here and may be a good location for your family as well. Each child also gets a little card that they can write their personal and family penances on for safe keeping. It can serve as a bookmark in their daily spiritual read or other daily subject like math. Wearing a crucifix, or sacrifice bead bracelet has helped keep our penances in mind each day too.
Remove Temptations While Gathering Encouragement and Reinforcements
We join in the spirit of Shrovetide & Mardi Gras by using up or getting rid of our decided sacrifices of food, media, etc… In the same vein, we get all we will need for the crosses of more prayer, meditation, and so on, with which you chose to replace them. Historically fasting during Lent was much stricter before laxity was slowly introduced. In addition to meat, no animal product like eggs, diary, broth, or fat were widely allowed. Without refrigeration to preserve them, these foods were either consumed by the family, fed to livestock, or wasted, which led to all the Pre-Lent partying and sweets to use up these luxuries.
In the Eastern branch of the Church, where the Lenten fast is still much stricter, the Sundays of Sexagesima and Quinquagesima also bear the names Meatfare Sunday and Cheesefare Sunday. After each respective Sunday those groups of foods are removed for the duration of Lent. We borrow from these Eastern traditions in our home by focusing the suppers for those Sundays on the fare we would have also lost in earlier times while discussing the history of Lenten Fasting. For example, on Meatfare Sexagesima Sunday we may have Charcuterie for lunch and the treat of steaks and pork chops as supper. Meanwhile for Cheesefare Quinquagesima Sunday we may have a cheese and fruit board as lunch with supper as something like a creamy fettuccine alfredo.
This is also when I set our menu for that year’s Lenten Friday abstinence and go ahead to purchase those groceries so we have them at the ready without excuse. If your family is new to Friday abstinence, a simple rotation of six meatless meals from Lent can easily be repeated to cover your family for Friday penance throughout the whole year. I really tried to simplify lunches over the years and don’t worry too much about Friday Lenten lunches. All year we typically have the same lunch at least 4 days in a row during the week with a meatless meal like tuna salad, egg salad, or grilled cheese sandwiches for Friday with enough leftovers for Saturday (but no leftover grilled cheeses, that’s a southern sacrilege). On Monday we switch to something else. I’ll admit, the redundancy can feel like more of its own penance at times, but that’s hopefully for the best.
Get Ready to Set Up A Penitential Home Atmosphere
During Septuagesima week I try to put my hands on everything we use year after year to create a penitential atmosphere in our home for Lent. My goal is to have things found or picked up to have all the way through Lent and Holy Week. But if Holy Week things must wait due to budget, I still consider that being prepared for the start of the season and a win. These main things are the book Brother Hugo and the Bear we read on Ash Wednesday, a Lent box with our Lenten candle calendar, beeswax tapers, our stations of the cross, crown wreath and thorns, pennies for alms, and our symbols of the passion for the dining table. Throughout Lent we keep a charger on the dining table with our little cactus, “Longinus,” a wooden standing cross, a crown of thorns, and a set of 3 eight inch long “Jesus Nails” my oldest son forged. Physical things are not a requisite for observing a fruitful Lent, but I do feel they can help our littlest loves connect with the season more fully.
Shrove Tuesday and the Holy Face
Historically Shrove Tuesday is a feast of two sides. One of great feasting and of final preparations of both the tangible around us and the spiritual for the imminent season of penance. The final feasting was made to rid homes of the leftover foods prohibited during the fasting of Lent and the faithful had one last day to seek out the Sacrament of Confession if they had not done so already. On this day our children enjoy their pancake races, after the old English tradition, and breakfast for supper (“Brinner”), with one last dessert, before we enter the desert with Christ on the morrow. Finally, Shrove Tuesday is also the traditional Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus. As such, our children take great joy in adding whipping cream and fruit to give their pancakes faces each year.
As we enter into this Shrovetide, I will leave y’all with some of the Holy Face prayers we recite over our traditional pancake supper along with the Litany of the Holy Face. O Bleeding Face, O Face Divine, be every adoration Thine.
The Golden Arrow Prayer
May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible, and ineffable Name of God be forever praised, blessed, adored, loved, and glorified, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amen.
Prayer to our Almighty Father Written by St. Augustine
Almighty Father, come into our hearts, and so fill us with Thy love that forsaking all evil desires, we may embrace Thee, our only Good. Show us, O Lord our God, what Thou are to us. Say to our souls: “I am Thy salvation.” Speak so that we may hear. Our hearts are before Thee. Open our ears; let us hasten after Thy voice. Hide not Thy Face from us, we beseech Thee, O Lord. Open our hearts so that Thou mayest enter in. Repair the ruined mansions, that Thou mayest dwellest therein. Hear us, O Heavenly Father, for the sake of Thy only Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who livest and reignest with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and forever Amen.
Offering of the Holy Face Written by St. John Vianney
Oh, my beautiful Immaculate Mother Mary, Queen of Sorrows, I beg of you, by the inexpressible agony you did endure at the foot of the Cross, to offer to the Eternal Father, in my stead, the Holy Face of your Divine Son, my Jesus, covered with Blood, wounds, and other indignities heaped upon Him during His Sacred Passion, and beg of Him to grant (us a fruitful Lent) Amen.
Praises of the Holy Face
Blessed be Jesus!
Blessed be the Holy Face of Jesus!
Blessed be the Holy Face in the majesty and beauty of Its heavenly features
Blessed be the Holy Face through the words which issued from Its Divine mouth!
Blessed be the Holy Face through all the glances of Its Adorable eyes!
Blessed be the Holy Face in the transfiguration of Mount Tabor!
Blessed be the Holy Face in the fatigues of Its apostolate!
Blessed be the Holy Face in the bloody sweat of the Agony!
Blessed be the Holy Face in the humiliations of the Passion!
Blessed be the Holy Face in the sufferings of death!
Blessed be the Holy Face in the splendor of the Resurrection!
Blessed be the Holy Face in the glory of light eternal!