Low Sunday

This Sunday is called from the first words of the Introit, the Sunday of Quasimodo, or Sunday in Albis (deponendis) because the neophytes on that day put aside their white garments. In English the term Low Sunday is in contrast with Easter or High Sunday. Another Latin name Pascha clausum is preserved in the French Pâques closes and in the Dutch or Flemish Beloken Pasen: close of Easter, this Sunday ending the Octave. - Let us proclaim our faith in the risen Lord, and in His divine Presence in the Holy Eucharist.

Quasimodo Sunday is, of course, not named after the famous "Hunchback of Notre Dame" (a novel by Victor Hugo); in fact, quite the opposite.

Days of the Church year often take their respective names from the opening words of that day's Introit. For example, the Introit of the third Sunday of Advent opens Gaudete in Domino semper. Similarly, the Introit of the fourth Sunday of Lent begins with the words Laetare Jerusalem. Today the Introit opens Quasi modo geniti infantes, alleluia: rationabile, sine dolo lac concupiscite, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. [As newborn babes, alleluia, desire the rational milk without guile, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.]

In Victor Hugo's story, it was on this day, Quasi modo Sunday, that a deformed child was left in the Cathedrale Notre-Dame:

Sixteen years previous to the epoch when this story takes place, one fine morning, on Quasimodo Sunday, a living creature had been deposited, after Mass, in the church of Notre- Dame, on the wooden bed securely fixed in the vestibule on the left, opposite that great image of Saint Christopher, which the figure of Messire Antoine des Essarts, chevalier, carved in stone, had been gazing at on his knees since 1413, when they took it into their heads to overthrow the saint and the faithful follower. Upon this bed of wood it was customary to expose foundlings for public charity. Whoever cared to take them did so. In front of the wooden bed was a copper basin for alms. The sort of living being which lay upon that plank on the morning of Quasimodo, in the year of the Lord, 1467, appeared to excite to a high degree, the curiosity of the numerous group which had congregated about the wooden bed.