The Season of Pre-Lent – The Polish National Catholic Church has officially reinstated the Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima Sundays in 2014 throughout the entire Church.

The celebration of this season as a preparation for Holy Lent is now highlighted as a part of the Liturgical Year. “Septuagesima” means “seventy,” and Septuagesima Sunday comes roughly seventy days before Easter. Subsequently, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima Sundays come roughly sixty and fifty days before Easter, respectively.

The liturgical color of this season which prepares us to anticipate the spiritual rigors of the Lenten Season is rose. Lent then takes on the somber hue of purple signifying the seven-week period of penitence and introspection and our conversion of heart.

A rather poetic rendering of the details of Pre-Lent from a separate liturgical source follows here: The leading feature of this season, then, is the total suspension of the Alleluia, which is not again to be heard upon the earth until the arrival of that most happy day, Easter’s dawn, when, having suffered death with our Lord Jesus, and having been buried together with Him, we shall rise again with Him to a new life.

[Also] The sweet hymn of the angels, “Gloria in excelsis Deo,” which we have sung every Sunday since the birth of our Saviour in Bethlehem, is also taken from us…..from now till Easter…..

After the Gradual of the Mass, instead of the thrice repeated Alleluia, which prepared our hearts to listen to the voice of God in the holy Gospel, we shall hear but a mournful and protracted chant, called, on that account, the Tract.