Today, in the ancient calendar of the Church, is Septuagesima Sunday, which (as the name indicates) nominally marks 70 days before Easter, and it also marks the start of a short liturgical season known as pre-Lent, a run up to the forty days of Lent which begins in 17 days time, but which already anticipates Lent with the suppression of the ‘Gloria’ and the ’Alleluia’, and the adoption of penitential violet vestments, although fasting, which is proper to the holy season of Lent, is not yet upon us.
Rather, this period of Septuagesima calls us to prepare for Lent by examining our consciences, by recalling that we shall all be called to judgement, summoned on the Last Day to account for our deeds before God. For the number 70 in Scripture is sometimes thought to signify a period of judgement, a time for the execution of God’s justice in which he shall chastise and teach his people. Hence the people of Israel were exiled from the Promised Land and held captive in Babylon for 70 years. Hence after the deluge and scores of days of rain, Noah and his family in the ark waited for about 70 days for the flood waters to abate. And hence Christ sent out 70 disciples into the world to proclaim “The kingdom of God has come near to you” (Lk 10:9) and so to call humanity to be attentive to the imminence of God.
On Septuagesima Sunday, on this seventieth day, therefore, the Church calls us to remember the goodness of God who has repeatedly called his people to repentance, giving them many opportunities to prepare for his final coming as Judge through major cataclysmic events such as the flood and the exile that reminded God’s people of the fragility of life, and of the fundamental insecurity of all our human certitude. If anything at all, our experience of a global pandemic, and the spectre of impending war should at least remind us of this, and so be a call to repentance, to turn to God, to return to him, and to seek him who alone is everlasting. For nothing in creation endures for ever: “Remember that you are dust”, we shall recall on Ash Wednesday. Only God is. Only he, and his truth, his love, his Word endures for ever. St Paul expresses this metaphorically in today’s epistle, saying: “the Rock was Christ.”
Yes, God is the Rock on which we must stand when the flood waters rise; he is the Rock on which to build our lives, so that we are never exiled no matter how far we go from home. For Christ is himself the Kingdom of God proclaimed by the 70, and if we are founded on Christ then we shall find that the Kingdom is not just near to us but indeed, as Christ says later on St Luke’s Gospel, “the Kingdom of God is within you.” (Lk 17:21) In these seventy days, therefore, as we examine our lives, and then as we detach ourselves from money and food through Lenten almsgiving and fasting, we learn to rely less on the things of this world, on created goods, and to turn towards Christ who alone is our Rock, on whom alone we can depend. Thus the Entrance chant declared: “I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength: the Lord is my firmament, my refuge, and my deliverer.” And again, the Gradual sings: “Let them trust in Thee who know Thee: for Thou hast not forsaken them that seek Thee, O Lord.”
The point of this verse from psalm 9 is this: that only those who know the Lord will trust him, and will seek him, and thus they shall not be forsaken by him. Therefore, these days of pre-Lent and Lent, which were traditionally intensive days of final preparation for catechumens who were going to be Baptised and initiated as Christians at the Easter Vigil, are days in which we, like those catechumens, are called to know the Lord more intimately especially through prayer and a prayerful reading of Scripture. For if we do not grow in our knowledge of God now, then when those days of tearful floods come, or when we are exiled from our earthly securities, we shall not know to call upon him, we shall not know to trust him and depend upon him and to say: “my Rock isChrist”!
Therefore the Lord, in his mercy, gives us this time of Septuagesima, these seventy days in which to grow closer to him; to grow in knowledge of him for as St Thomas rightly says, you cannot love that which you do not know. So the Church, in her motherly care for wellbeing, summons us to observe these days of pre-Lent and Lent. For she calls us to be mindful of God’s graciousness to us, as he comes to visit us by his grace, and to call us to labour in his vineyard.
For perhaps we are like those men in the Gospel who are standing around idle, and our days are not gainfully employed in doing the Lord’s will and seeking his favour. Instead, we might while away our time, wasting the days on entertainment, social media, gossiping and speculating in ways which do not result in any increase in virtue or charity. But with God it is never too late to repent and change and improve our Christian lives. Therefore, even at the eleventh hour, Christ comes in search of us, and his grace is poured out upon us to strengthen and empower us to work in the vineyard of the Lord. The liturgical seasons of Septuagesima and Lent, therefore, are instantiations of God’s mercy, as his grace is poured out upon us at this time, year after year, repeatedly, calling us to judgement, calling us to examine our lives, and summoning us to repent and receive him into our hearts, our homes, and our communities.
The Gospel reminds us that at the end we, the labourers, shall all be called and given our wages for what we have done; we shall all be called to Judgement. But, at the same time, the Gospel also reminds us of the mercy of God preparing us for that day because he ‘hires’ us, that is to say, he generously summons us to be faithful to our baptismal vocation, to follow Christ more closely, and so, to be counted among the subjects of God’s Kingdom. All this is the work of God’s grace which we receive today in the Church’s Liturgy, and in this most holy Sacrament. For it is here in the sacred Liturgy that we are trained, prepared, and indeed, that we learn to look to God and to depend solely on him.
Therefore Pope Benedict XVI said: ““Sursum corda”, let us lift up our hearts above the confusion of our apprehensions, our desires, our narrowness, our distraction. Our hearts, our innermost selves, must open in docility to the word of God and must be recollected in the Church’s prayer… The eyes of the heart must be turned to the Lord, who is in our midst: this is a fundamental disposition. Whenever we live out the liturgy with this basic approach, our hearts are, as it were, removed from the force of gravity which has pulled them downwards and are inwardly uplifted, towards the truth, towards love, towards God. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “in the sacramental liturgy of the Church, the mission of Christ and of the Holy Spirit proclaims, makes present, and communicates the mystery of salvation, which is continued in the heart that prays. The spiritual writers sometimes compare the heart to an altar” (n. 2655): altare Dei est cor nostrum.”
Hence, when the days of the flood were over, and when Israel returned from Exile, the first thing that God’s people did was to build an altar. So shall we, when we are lifted up to the Lord in repentance and prayer, make of our hearts an altar for God. For God wills to make of our bodies a Tabernacle for his holy Presence; you and I are called to be a Temple of the Most Blessed Trinity who dwells within us through sanctifying grace.
Keywords: The spirit of primal fire, wake-up call, unlimited possibilities, realization, spiritual awakening, renewal, reward, rebirth, absolution, blessings, guidance & health. Making a judgement, having a day of reckoning, separating the wheat from the chaff, making an honest appraisal, getting off the fence, using critical faculties, taking a stand & making hard choices. Feeling reborn, awakening to possibilities, transforming, enjoying renewed hope, making a fresh start, seeing everything in a new light & discovering joy. Hearing a call, recognizing your true vocation, feeling inner conviction, feeling an impulse to act, deciding to make a difference, feeling drawn in a new direction, knowing what you must do & answering a need. Finding absolution, feeling cleansed and refreshed, releasing guilts and sorrows, forgiving yourself and others, atoning for past mistakes, unburdening yourself & feeling sins washed away.
Judgement says: “The time has come for you to respond to my call This is a time of endings and new purpose; it is a time for you to be receptive to change. You must embrace all the opportunities that will be coming your way.” - Around the Tarot in 78 Days
Notes: I’ve been getting this card a lot lately, just jumping out of nowhere. It also happens to be my card for the month of November. It will be interesting to see how it shows.
The Judgement card is “choices and their inevitable consequences coming due.”
The cosmos is calling and you have to answer. It’s a call to something greater. You have to act. You need to make a decision. Unlike the Justice card, this decision is a mix of logic and intuition.
Your past is behind you. All your past experiences are learned. All regrets and wrongdoings are processed.
Any choice you make is going to have a huge, long-lasting effect.
Trust your judgement and know you’re on the right path.
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James Fucking Holden, my man. The top is the video still from episode 1x02 “The Big Empty” where he sent out that fateful message about the Canterbury. He pressed the button. And there his life of lazy drifting turned into answering the call.
The bottom is his final act, becoming one with the Ring Station to help save everyone. The halo-arc of protomolecule crowns him; since it’s a curvy protomolecule dot it means the “natural” protomolecule - as opposed to the human-engineered protomolecule.
It was her melodrama that he enjoyed the most, her natural stage presence, the way she’d turn anything into a performance. She seemed to know when it was appropriate, when to play it up, and when to bite her creative tongue.
A simple request, casually asked, was often met with a mock faint, her entire body seemingly collapsing under the sheer weight of the stress such a simple task required. She’d fan her brow, adopt a mock Southern accent, and cry bloody murder.
It was entertaining, then, for him to remain deadpan and stoic, a half amused smile gracing his lips, but nothing else indicating either tolerance or approval of such flamboyant behaviour. Occasionally it would garner a punishment, but it was punishment in name only.
There were other times, when the request wasn’t a request, but an order, that she would know to cow such excessive behaviour, slipping into line almost instantaneously. It wasn’t really her melodrama he enjoyed so much, but rather her precise judgement. Knowing when, and how, to behave. When to entertain, and when to obey. A priceless quality.
