SHROVETIDE

How I wish I would have started this series of devotions re traditions surrounding Lent earlier. I'm learning a lot myself. Although Shrovetide is past, I found it most interesting to look into these holidays, or, more particularly, these Holy Days of Easter.

Shrovetide is the lst four days prior to Ash Wednesday -- that's Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. "To shrive" means to hear confession of sins. But I see no evidence of such confession in any of the practices of these holy days unless it might be on Shrove Sunday.

Shrove Saturday was originally known as Egg Saturday. Pasch eggs, symbolic of creation or springtime, were given to friends. This practice originated with the Persians, but was also practiced among the Jews, Egyptians, and Hindus. Christians eventually adopted the custom to symbolize the resurrection. There is also a tradition that the world was created, or "hatched" at Easter-tide.

Shrove Sunday was known as Quinquagesima Sunday -- if you can pronounce it! The name came from the fact that it was fifty days before Easter Sunday, and was also called Greasy Sunday. For many early Christians it was the beginning of the fast before Easter. For others it marked the time after which meat was forbidden. It is no longer observed by the Catholic Church, however.

Shrove Monday is known as Collop Monday, and is named after the traditional dish of the day -- collops of bacon served with eggs. (A collop is a chunk or slice of meat or fat.) The collops were also the source of the fat for the next day's pancakes.

Shrove Tuesday is known as Pancake Day, the day on which all eggs, fats, butter and milk had to be used up as Lent meant abstaining from all eggs and dairy products. Shrovetide was celebrated with games, sports, dancing and other revelries. This included feasts to use up food that could not be eaten during the Lenten fast. It's interesting to note that in some cultures Shrove Tuesday night was a time of revelry where the boys would indulge in mischief of all kinds such as hidng gates, taking off door knockers, and making off with anything that homeowners had forgotten to fasten down. (Wonder how much that practice has influenced our modern-day Hallowe'ens?)

On Pancake Tuesday, the pancakes, of course, would use up the last of the eggs and bacon fat. Sometimes villages would hold a pancake race where the housewives would each carry a skillet containing a very large, very thin pancake. The women would race for the finish line tossing their pancakes as they ran! Points were given for the number and height of the flips as well as the number of times the pancake turned over. There were penalties, of course, for dropping the pancake! Pancake Tuesday is also known as Fat Tuesday!

Although Shrovetide is past for 2009, you now have this information for future years. Whether you follow any of these holiays, including Ash Wednesday, is your decision.

Preacher's Kid