Before Ash Wednesday Comes...

The 40-day period before Easter is known as Lent, a time when Christians prepare for the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a time when you fast from all rich foods, and people who are participating in the fast usually eat last hearty treats like pastries, doughnuts, cake, and pie on the day before Ash Wednesday. That is why it's referred to in the US and in France as Mardi Gras, which means "Fat Tuesday." The most famous Mardi Gras celebration in the United States is held in New Orleans, where parades, social organizations called "krewes" who supply the floats for the parade, candy and beads glitter the day.

Mardi Gras New Orleans

In England the day is called Shrove Tuesday, because the faithful went to church on that day to be "shriven" (confessed) of their sins and then took the next 40 days to do their penance. To use up all the fat in the household, traditionally pancakes were made, so it's now referred to as "Pancake Day."

Shrove Tuesday: What is It?

The Origins of Pancake Day

Pancake Day: Why Shrove Tuesday is a Thing - BBC News

Happy Pancake Day 2018!

What's the Meaning Behind Shrove Tuesday?

Should Old Customs Be Forgotten...

If you read as many books about Christmas customs as I have, you'll discover several writers quoted quite commonly. Charles Dickens, of course, is one, and Marjorie Holmes, from her At Christmas the Heart Goes Home, is another. But for Christian celebration customs, one writer is mentioned more than the rest: Francis X. Weiser, a Jesuit priest who wrote the classic The Christmas Book. Lesser known is Weiser's The Easter Book, which was written a few years later.

This is a very plain book, no fancy color illustrations or slick paper (there are line illustrations at the beginning of each chapter), just Weiser's lively narration about the Easter season, starting from the very first Easter (and tracing some of the pagan aspects greeting the spring that still remain in the celebration) and tracing ancient and modern celebrations from preparations before Lent through the Ascension. (I was amused at the revision of the tale of the Maypole, which was originally a pagan fertility symbol.) I learned several things here which I had never known before, one being that the word "quarantine" comes from preparations for Lent ("quarantine" referring to the forty days of Lent) many years before it was used for restrictions due to sickness. Also, there was always the joke when I was a schoolkid that it was really called "Length" because it lasted so long. Actually the word "Lent" does sort of mean that: it comes from Anglo-Saxon Lengten-tide (springtime), "lengten" referring to the days lengthening as the summer solstice approaches. Not to mention that the Sunday after Easter is "Low Sunday" because Easter Sunday through "Low" Sunday is all part of Easter week, with Easter being the "High" Sunday.

This book was published in 1954 and the one thing you wistfully wonder when you read it is if 62 years later the charming customs Weiser details so lovingly—sprinkling water in Hungary and Germany on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, not washing clothes on Good Friday, skipping rope in one English village, red eggs only in Greece, wearing mourning or at least dark clothing in Poland during Lent, etc.—are still kept. Even before I left home in the 1980s, it was no longer common to see Septuagesima Sunday, Sexagisima Sunday, and Quinquagesima Sunday listed in our missalettes (not to mention the aforementioned Low Sunday), although they were delightful tongue-twisters to a word-worshiping child. This book will make you nostalgic for seemingly innocent days when children reveled in finding home-made Easter baskets and you could hold open house where any stranger could walk in and not worry about being attacked.

A good edition to anyone's holiday library if you can find a copy at a decent price. This was the first one I found that wasn't over $50!

And I've finished this review just in time because tomorrow is Ascension Thursday...

Lent Begins

After the furor of mardi gras, this is a quiet day. It's appropriate weather here, too, as grey as the ashes and raining steadily. Every once in a while there is a rumble of thunder. Willow, her eyes big, retreats into her crate: "The sky is growling at me!" Pidge chirps back or coos to Girlfriend: "I'm not afraid of that ol' sky."

Ash Wednesday

"Ash Wednesday: Our Shifting Understanding of Lent"

Ken Collins on Ash Wednesday

Catholic Online on Ash Wednesday

The BBC's Page on Ash Wednesday

I remember going to St. Mary's every Ash Wednesday.The old walls of the church smelled strongly of incense. People bundled in winter coats trailed to the altar and then back. Mostly women but some men said rosaries after receiving their ashes. Some children were taken to Mass before school and came in with the mark of ashes on their foreheads. We went after work because Daddy left for work too early to go to church, but was home by 4 p.m. By then the sun was low in the sky and the old church was dim, with the banks of votive candles a flickeringly bright oasis around the altar.

"Dust Thou Art..."

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Season of Lent. It is a season of penance, reflection, and fasting which prepares us for Christ's Resurrection on Easter Sunday, through which we attain redemption...[t]he ashes are made from the blessed palms used in the Palm Sunday celebration of the previous year. The ashes are christened with Holy Water and are scented by exposure to incense....[Catholic Online]

During Mass on Ash Wednesday, each attendee comes forward and is marked on the forehead by ashes from the priest's thumb, drawn in a cross, while the priest says "Remember, Man is dust, and unto dust you shall return."

The color for this liturgical season is purple, except on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, when the color is black to signify Jesus' death. On Easter Sunday the color becomes white, to symbolize His resurrection.

Some other links:

Catholic Encyclopedia: Ash Wednesday

BBC Religion & Ethics, Ash Wednesday

Ken Collins: Why Ashes on Ash Wednesday?

Ken also addresses the term "fasting." When I mentioned we used to "fast" on Fridays and often people "fasted" completely during Lent, many people interpreted that as not eating at all. Ken explains "Today the word 'fasting' means a total abstention from all food. In the historic Church, it means a disciplined diet so that your animal appetites become a sort of spiritual snooze alarm." We did not eat meat or other rich foods on Friday all year round before Vatican II, and during Lent you were supposed to observe this every day. After Vatican II, the requirement to eat only fish on Friday was lifted, except during Lent. Small children and the elderly were exempt from this requirement.

It is little known today, but there used to be other 40 day periods like Lent on the liturgical calendar. Advent, for instance, originally was a 40-day period, and fasting was observed, although not as strictly as during Lent.

The other tradition, of course, was "giving up something for Lent." Most Catholic schoolchildren remember giving up candy (or a favorite candy) or snacks for Lent; some gave up television altogether or at certain times, or eschewed comic books or something else they enjoyed. Some kids cheated and "gave up" foods they hated. I tried, but my mother said I was not allowed to give up spinach for Lent! :-)

When neighborhoods had churches in walking distance from their parishoners, many Catholics attended morning Mass every day during Lent. Churches usually had a 6 a.m. daily service back then and people would go before work.

The Lessons for Ash Wednesday, from the Episcopal Lectionary

Mardi Gras: It Isn't Just About Bacchanalia in the Streets

Shrovetide is the English equivalent of what is known in the greater part of Southern Europe as the "Carnival", a word which, in spite of wild suggestions to the contrary, is undoubtedly to be derived from the "taking away of flesh" (camera levare) which marked the beginning of Lent.

More about Shrovetide from the Catholic Encyclopedia

And more:

BBC Religion & Ethics: Shrove Tuesday

James Kiefer's Shrove Tuesday Page

All that drinking, eating, and partying in the streets originally came from an effort to rid your house of meat, milk, eggs, and the other rich foods you were forbidden to eat during Lent but which would spoil if left until Easter. In England, this meant the cooking and eating of pancakes, and there the holiday is usually referred to as "Pancake Day."

Woodlands Junior School's Web Page about "Pancake Day"

Elaine's Pancake Day Page

Domestic-Church.com's Pancake Day Page

The most interesting custom to come out of Shrove Tuesday were the pancake races. One, in Olney, England, has become world famous.

No one is quite certain how the world famous Pancake Race at Olney originated. One story tells us of a harassed housewife, hearing the shriving bell, dashing off to the Church still clutching her frying pan containing a pancake. Another that the gift of pancakes may have been a form of bribe to the Ringer, or Sexton that he might ring the bell sooner; for the ringing of the Church bell was the signal for the beginning of the day's holiday...[Olney Pancake Day Site]

Read more about the Olney races.

In 1950 the race became an international event. A challenge was received from the town of Liberal in Kansas, USA, where they had, after seeing press photographs of the race at Olney, conceived the idea of starting a similar custom. Olney readily accepted the challenge and, in a spirit of international goodwill and friendship, the two towns now compete annually and prizes are exchanged....[Olney Pancake Day Site]

More info from the city of Liberal and the International Pancake Day site.