QUINQUAGESIMA. - From the Latin, it is the 50th day after or before Easter; Greek πεντηκοστή.
1) Strictly it is the day of Pentecost (v.), but by the early Christian writers and Fathers it was taken in the sense of the festive season of the 50 days between Easter and Pentecost (Tertullian, De orat., 23; De coron. mil., 3). This time was considered particularly solemn, a continuous festivity: every day the sacred liturgy was celebrated, prayer was offered standing, not kneeling (Tertullian, De orat., 23), there was no fasting (id., De coron. mil., 3), and the Alleluia was repeated both in the Office and in the Mass (St. Augustine, Ep. 55, 32; «Quinquagesimam celebrat nobiscum ecclesia toto orbe diffusa»). In a particular way the martyrs are associated with the joy of Easter and Pentecost with a proper Office and Mass.
2) In the Latin rite it is the seventh Sunday before Easter. The custom of prefixing to Lent some days of penance or fasting is found mentioned by St. Maximus of Turin (PL 57, 301; 583) and by Faustus of Riez (CSEL, 21, 328); but the Councils of Orléans, the first (511) in can. 24 and the fourth (541) in can. 2, are opposed to it; nevertheless it was accepted by Rome perhaps under the influence of Constantinople around 520; the Liber Pontificalis says that Felix IV ordered «ut septem ebdomadae ieiunium celebraretur Paschae» (cf. Ordo Romanus XIV, 2 and XVI, 5: ed. M. Andrieu, II, Louvain 1951). The Liber Comicus of the Toledan liturgy at the time of St. Ildephonsus (657-67) has a Sunday «ante carnes tollendas» corresponding to the Roman Q.