QUINQUAGESIMA. — From the Latin, it is the 50th day after or before Easter; Greek πεντηκοστή.
1) Strictly speaking, it is the day of Pentecost (v.), but from the earliest Christian writers and Fathers it has been taken in the sense of the festive period of the 50 days between Easter and Pentecost (Tertullian, De orat., 23; De coron. mil., 3). This time was considered particularly solemn, a continuous festival: every day the sacred liturgy was celebrated, prayer was offered standing, not kneeling (Tertullian, De orat., 23), fasting was not observed (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 special way, martyrs were associated with the joy of Easter and Pentecost with their own Office and Mass.
2) In the Latin rite, it is the seventh Sunday before Easter. The practice of adding some days of penance or fasting before Lent is 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 canon 24 and the Fourth (541) in canon 2, are opposed to it; nonetheless, 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 celebratur Paschae» (cf. Ordo Romanus XIV, 2 and XVI, 5; ed. M. Andrieu, II, Louvain 1951). The Liber Comicus of the Mozarabic liturgy at the time of St. Ildefonsus (657–67) has a Sunday «ante carnes tollendas» corresponding to the Roman Quinquagesima.