SESSAGESIMA (in the Roman Missal, “Dominica in Sexagesima”). — The eighth Sunday before Easter, in preparation for the feast of the Resurrection of Christ.
In the East (where people did not fast on Saturday, except Holy Saturday, or on Sunday), in order to have, following Christ’s example, forty days of fasting, preparation for Easter began precisely on the eighth Sunday before it, with the result that there were 8 and 5 days of fasting. Thus—counting Monday through the Wednesday of Easter—there were sixty days of solemnity (Jerusalem [Egeria in 393–94], Cyprus [Epiphanius, d. in 403], Antioch [John Chrysostom, ca. 386–97, and Severus, 512–18]). From the East, the custom of anticipating the Easter preparation passed to the West around the middle of the sixth century, with the Quinquagesima (v.) in Rome, Turin, and the Gallican Province. S. is found around 542 in Gaul among the monks of the Rule of St. Caesarius of Arles and in the Regula Magistri; but the bishops did not accept it (the Councils of Orléans of 511 and 541 mention Quinquagesima and S. for the first time). In the sixth century it is found at Capua (the Epistolary of Victor of Capua, ca. 546). Rome did not yet have it in the time of Pope Vigilius (ca. 538), but by the time of St. Gregory the Great it was already observed, excluding Septuagesima (A. Chavasse). St. Benedict knows neither Quinquagesima nor S. In the sixth and seventh centuries it is found at Milan (cod. Vat. Reg. 9), Aquileia and Lombardy (Cod. Forojul, [Cividale], and Rehdigeranus [Breslau]), Schlettstadt (“Apostolus”), England (the Gospel Book of St. Cuthbert [Lindisfarne], whose contents reflect the liturgy of Naples), and finally in the Berlin fragment (fol. 877).
BBL.: P. Siffrin, Das Sexagesima-Posten, in Jahrb. für Liturgien, 10 (1930), pp. 19–20; G. Morin, La part des papes du VIe siècle dans le développement de l'année liturgique, in Rev. bénédict., 52 (1940), pp. 3–8; A. Baumstark, Liturgie comparée, Chevetogne s. a., pp. 203–13; A. Dold, Die im cod. Vat. Reg. lat. 9 vorgeheftete Liste paulinisch. Lesungen für die Messfeier, Beuron 1944, pp. 28–31; J. Frogers, Les anticipations du jeûne quadragésimal, in Mélanges de sc. relig., 3 (1946), pp. 207–34; A. Chavasse, Temps de préparation à la Pâque d'après quelques livres liturg. romain, in Rech. de sc. relig., 37 (1950), pp. 123, 130–43. Pietro Siffrin