The following poem was written by a monk of the Monastery of San Benedetto in Monte, Norcia, Italy. Today is Septuagesima Sunday, the beginning of the “porch of Lent”. This Sunday marks the “burial of the Alleluia”, when the Alleluia of the Mass is replaced by the Tract. The very word Alleluia is also no longer heard in the chanting of the Office, until the Easter Vigil. This poem is a wonderful gift for each of us who love the Traditional Mass to deepen our own faith as we prepare for Lent.
Septuagesima is today inaugurated in the Roman Martyrology by the words: "Septuagesima Sunday, on which the canticle of the Lord, Alleluja, ceases to be said". On the Saturday preceding, the Roman Breviary notes that after the "Benedicamus" of Vespers two Alleluias are to be added, that thenceforth it is to be omitted till Easter, and in its place "Laus tibi Domine" is to be said at the beginning of the Office. Formerly the farewell to the Alleluia was quite solemn. In an Antiphonary of the Church of St. Cornelius at Compiègne we find two special antiphons. Spain had a short Office consisting of a hymn, chapter, antiphon, and sequence. Missals in Germany up to the fifteenth century had a beautiful sequence. In French churches they sang the hymn "Alleluia, dulce carmen" (Guéranger, IV, 14) which was well-known among the Anglo-Saxons (Rock, IV, 69). The "Te Deum" is not recited at Matins, except on feasts. The lessons of the first Nocturn are taken from Genesis, relating the fall and subsequent misery of man and thus giving a fit preparation for the Lenten season. In the Mass of Sunday and ferias the Gloria in Excelsis is entirely omitted. In all Masses a Tract is added to the Gradual.
As Septuagesima (Latin for "seventy") is seventy days before Easter, it typologically commemorates the seventy years of exile spent by the Jews in Babylon. As Psalm 136 attests, God's chosen people did not deem it fit to sing their joyous songs from Sion during the Babylonian exile, and neither do Catholics during theirs. The joyful "Alleluia" is thus laid to rest for seventy days until it rises again in the Easter Vigil. As mentioned elsewhere, this dismissal, or depositiio, of the Alleluia can take place formally in a special ceremony. After the Saturday office of None or at some point of the afternoon on the day before Septuagesima Sunday, the choir gathers in the church where it carries a plaque or banner bearing the word "Alleluia" through the church as it sings the touching hymn, "Alleluia, dulce carmen" (part of which is quoted elsewhere). It is then solemnly "buried" in some place in the church. In the Middle Ages this procession could become quite elaborate. Sometimes the "Alleluia" plaque would be in the shape of a coffin, while in parts of France, a straw man with the word "Alleluia" was even burned in effigy in the churchyard. A simpler ceremony based on the same principles, however, can easily be held in one's home or parish.
And finally, from Fr. Franz Xaver Weiser (as quoted on the Canberra TLM blog):
The depositio (discontinuance) of the Alleluia on the eve of Septuagesima assumed in mediæval times a solemn and emotional note of saying farewell to the beloved song. Despite the fact that Pope Alexander II [in the eleventh century] had ordered a very simple and sombre way of "deposing" the Alleluia, a variety of farewell customs prevailed in many countries up to the sixteenth century. They were inspired by the sentiment that Bishop William Duranti (1296) voiced in his commentaries on the Divine Office: "We part from the Alleluia as from a beloved friend, whom we embrace many times and kiss on the mouth, head and hand, before we leave him" [a reference to the Rationale divinorum Officiorum of William DURAND, or DURANDUS, Bishop of Mende, 1230-96].
The liturgical office on the eve of Septuagesima was performed in many churches with special solemnity, and alleluias were freely inserted in the sacred text, even to the number of twenty-eight final alleluias in the church of Auxerre in France. This custom also inspired some tender poems that were sung or recited during Vespers in honour of the sacred word. The best-known of these hymns is Allelúia, dulce carmen ("Alleluia, Song of Gladness"), composed by an unknown author of the tenth century [...]
In some French churches the custom developed in ancient times of allowing the congregation to take part in the celebration of a quasi-liturgical farewell ceremony. The clergy abstained from any role in this popular service. Choirboys officiated in their stead at what was called "Burial of the Alleluia" performed the Saturday afternoon before Septuagesima Sunday. We find a description of it in the fifteenth-century statute book of the church of Toul:
"On Saturday before Septuagesima Sunday all choir boys gather in the sacristy during the prayer of the None, to prepare for the burial of the Alleluia. After the last Benedicámus (i.e., at the end of the service) they march in procession with crosses, tapers, holy water and censers; and they carry a coffin, as in a funeral. Thus they proceed through the aisle, moaning and morning, until they reach the cloister. There they bury the coffin; they sprinkle it with holy water and incense it; whereupon they return to the sacristy by the same way."
In Paris, a straw figure bearing in golden letters the inscription "Alleluia" was carried out of the choir at the end of the service, and burned in the churchyard [...]
Thus the Alleluia is sung for the last time, and not heard again until it suddenly bursts into glory during the Mass of the Easter Vigil, when the celebrant intones this sacred word after the Epistle, repeating it three times as a jubilant herald of the Resurrection of Christ.
I have read that, in some Traditional Catholic communities (including in at least one SSPX church), some form of the "depositio"of the Alleluia is still carried out.
It can be done by the family: please see this article.
Fra Angelico's "Vision of Ezechiel," 1452, showing the Throne of God's "wheel in the midst of a wheel" (Ezech. 1:16) -- a wheel of Apostles and Evangelists within a wheel of Old Testament Prophets, all gazing upon and drawing inspiration from the rays of the Light Divine, but the Apostles and Evangelists have a closer and clearer vision of the Light.
While the sacred observance of Holy Week is now under way in which the Church relives with her Lord that suffering and death He endured to save her, we also may mark the commemorations of the saints and martyrs who showed forth the Lord's salvation in their own lives and deaths. On this day, the traditional Roman Martyrology presents for our veneration another Old Testament saint -- the holy prophet Ezechiel, author of the Book of Ezechiel, one of the three Major Prophets (so called due to their length). Like so many of his fellow prophets, St. Ezechiel traditionally is said to have been martyred by his countrymen. St. Ezechiel (Hebrew Yehezqel, which means "Whom God strengthens") was an Aaronite priest who in 597 B.C. was carried away from Judah and Jerusalem to Babylon, where over the course of more than two decades God and His angels repeatedly appeared to him in striking visions, revealing to him that Jerusalem would be destroyed but that a new David would arise to restore Israel, and directing him to teach, reprove, and encourage his fellow exiled Jews with his divinely inspired prophecies. St. Ezechiel's name heads the list of saints in the Roman Martyrology for this date, which says:
This Day, the Tenth Day of April
The prophet Ezechiel, who was put to death in Babylon by the Judge of the people of Israel, because he reproved him for worshipping idols. He was buried in the sepulcher of Sem and Arphaxad, Abraham's ancestors. To his tomb many were wont to resort for the purpose of prayer.
