The word “Septuagesima” comes from Latin and means “seventieth”. The name of the Septuagesima Sunday marks the fact that from this Sunday there are seventy days until Easter, the greatest and most important Christian holiday.

The number seventy reminds, among other things, Moses’ statement that “the days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10).

Both pre-Lent and Lent are designed to draw our attention from temporary to timeless, from worthless to precious, from our own small, limited and sinful selves to God, who has revealed His amazing grace and love for us in His only-begotten Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ.

A priest recently recalled his trip to Rwanda where he spoke to people about reconciliation. Thirty years ago, from April to June 1994, an unthinkable genocide took place in Rwanda, during which, among other crimes, up to 800,000 people were killed and half a million women were raped. When that priest met and talked with people, he saw two things: on the one hand, how impossible, humanly speaking, it is to find reconciliation in situations like this, and on the other hand, how the amazing grace of God has made it possible despite everything.

St. Paul writes in today's Epistle about the gifts of God that He shares with us by His grace, naming prophecy, faith, ministry, teaching, exhortation and caring for one another in brotherly love. In the middle of the Epistle are the words: “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good,” and at the very end: “Mind not high things but condescend to men of low estate.”

On Epiphany, according to the tradition of the Church, three events in the life of Christ are remembered: the arriving of the Magi from the Orient to worship the Christ Child, the baptism of Jesus, and Christ’s first miracle at the wedding feast in Cana.

These three moments are not just brief stops on the earthly path of Jesus, they are events of enormous importance for the redemption of mankind.

When we look at the genealogy of Jesus, we see many people there who are described in the Old Testament as having done a lot of evil and were extremely sinful. Jesus’ opponents also accused Him of being a sinner – or at least of eating and drinking with sinners. In the Gospel of John, they even hinted that Jesus was born “of fornication”.