Pre-Lent in the 1928 BCP

Pre-Lent in the 1928 BCP is the short preparatory season formed by Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. It stands between the Sundays after Epiphany and Ash Wednesday, shifting the Church's public prayer from the manifestation of Christ toward the discipline, repentance, charity, and Passion-facing obedience of Lent.

1928 Prayer Book Setting

In the 1928 propers the season is explicitly headed "PRE-LENTEN SEASON" before Septuagesima. This heading is a 1928 American feature in the Justus transcription notes, while the three Sunday names and their collects, epistles, and gospels preserve an older Western and Anglican pattern. The page is therefore not simply a calendar label: the collects and readings give the season its theology.

PRE-LENTEN SEASON. The Sunday called Septuagesima, or the third Sunday before Lent.

The pre-Lenten Sundays are counted backward from Lent. Septuagesima is "the third Sunday before Lent," Sexagesima "the second Sunday before Lent," and Quinquagesima "the Sunday next before Lent." The names do not by themselves explain a complete forty-day fast; rather, they mark a gradual pastoral descent into Lent. In Prayer Book use this means the Church begins to pray penitently before Ash Wednesday, so that Lent is entered deliberately rather than abruptly.

Septuagesima

Septuagesima introduces Pre-Lent with humility before divine judgment and mercy. The collect confesses that sin deserves punishment, yet asks for merciful deliverance "by thy goodness." Its doctrinal movement is Augustinian and Prayer Book Anglican: the people do not bargain with God by works, but appeal to God's goodness through Christ.

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 appointed Epistle, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, supplies the ascetical grammar of the season. St. Paul does not describe self-discipline as a substitute for grace; he describes the disciplined Christian life as the way one runs toward the incorruptible crown. Septuagesima therefore begins Lent's preparation with bodily and moral seriousness.

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.

The Gospel, Matthew 20:1-16, prevents such discipline from becoming spiritual entitlement. The labourers in the vineyard receive according to the householder's goodness, not according to a claim against him. Thus the first Sunday of Pre-Lent joins penitence, self-denial, and grace: the Christian runs, but the reward remains mercy.

Sexagesima

Sexagesima deepens the lesson by stripping confidence from "any thing that we do." Its collect is brief, but it is the theological hinge of the season: the Christian's work, fasting, and repentance are real duties, yet they cannot be trusted as grounds of safety before God.

O LORD God, who seest that we put not our trust in any thing that we do; Mercifully grant that by thy power we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle, 2 Corinthians 11:19-31, places apostolic ministry under suffering rather than triumph. St. Paul lists labours, stripes, imprisonments, dangers, hunger, cold, and the daily care of the churches. Read after the Sexagesima collect, this is not a cult of suffering for its own sake; it is the apostolic pattern of dependence on God's power in weakness.

The Gospel, Luke 8:4-15, then turns the hearer inward. The pre-Lenten question is not merely whether the word is heard, but what kind of soil receives it. The Sunday asks clergy and laity to prepare for Lent by removing the cares, riches, pleasures, shallowness, and temptations that choke the word.

Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.

Quinquagesima

Quinquagesima stands immediately before Ash Wednesday. Its collect turns from discipline and adversity to charity, because the appointed Epistle is 1 Corinthians 13. In the 1928 BCP the final Sunday before Lent therefore refuses a merely external Lent. Fasting, prayer, and penitence must be animated by the love poured into the heart by the Holy Ghost.

O LORD, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth; Send thy Holy Ghost, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee. Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

The Epistle makes the collect unavoidable: spiritual gifts, knowledge, almsgiving, and even martyr-like surrender are nothing without charity. In classical Anglican reading, this protects penitence from both presumption and display. The Christian enters Lent not to accumulate religious achievements, but to have disordered love healed.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

The Gospel, Luke 18:31-43, brings Pre-Lent to the threshold of the Passion. Christ announces the journey to Jerusalem, his mocking, scourging, death, and resurrection; the disciples do not understand; the blind man cries for mercy and receives sight. Quinquagesima is therefore a fitting gate into Lent: charity is prayed for, the Passion is announced, and spiritual sight is sought from Christ.

Then Jesus took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished.

Anglican Interpretation

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere describe the older Prayer Book rationale of the pre-Lenten Sundays as a deliberate movement away from Christmas joy toward Lenten fasting and humiliation. Their account is useful because it reads the collects, lessons, epistles, and gospels as a coordinated liturgical pedagogy, not as detachable proof texts.

The design of the services on these Sundays is to call us away from the joy of Christmas, in order to prepare ourselves for the fasting and humiliation of Lent; from the manner of Christ's coming into the world, to think of our sins, which were the cause of the sufferings of His life.

Procter and Frere also summarize the appointed Epistles and Gospels as persuasive toward self-denial, religious duty, charity, and faith. That summary fits the 1928 arrangement closely: Septuagesima teaches disciplined running under grace, Sexagesima teaches trust in God rather than works, and Quinquagesima teaches charity before the Passion.

The design of the Epistles and Gospels is to persuade to acts of self-denial and religious duty, and to recommend charity and faith, as the necessary foundation for all religious actions.

Percy Dearmer's short account of the Prayer Book also helps identify the origin of the Quinquagesima collect. He notes that many collects are ancient Latin prayers, but that Quinquagesima belongs among those written for the first English Prayer Book. This matters because the Quinquagesima collect is not merely inherited seasonal material; it is a Reformation Prayer Book composition tightly fitted to 1 Corinthians 13.

But nineteen [6/7] (including the First and Second Sundays in Advent, Christmas Day, Quinquagesima Sunday, and the First and Second Sundays after Easter) were specially written for the Prayer Book of 1549.

Use in Worship and Catechesis

In parish worship, Pre-Lent gives clergy and catechists three Sundays to announce Lent before Ash Wednesday arrives. Septuagesima can be taught as the Sunday of grace and disciplined running; Sexagesima as the Sunday of the word received in good soil; Quinquagesima as the Sunday of charity and sight before the Passion. This sequence is especially useful in a 1928 BCP parish because the same collect, epistle, and gospel order is heard in Holy Communion and can be reinforced in sermon, catechesis, and family prayer.

Pre-Lent also keeps penitence evangelical. The season's repeated logic is not that preparation earns God's favour, but that God's mercy trains the Church to repent, hear the word, practice self-denial, receive charity, and follow Christ toward Jerusalem.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Church Calendar (1928 BCP)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Lent in the 1928 BCP

External Links

• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer at the Society of Archbishop Justus
• The Collects, Epistles and Gospels from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer
• Procter and Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, chapter XIII