Mardi Gras, from the French for Fat Tuesday, falls between Shrove Monday and Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras is also known as Pancake Day because of the foods traditionally eaten on this Tuesday. Fat left over from cooking breakfast on Shrove Monday would be used to make pancakes or donuts on Tuesday. Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday marked the final day of feasting before the beginning of Lent.
I realize that, while Catholic and many liturgical Protestant denominations celebrate Lent and the liturgical calendar, there are also many Christians, particularly from conservative evangelical backgrounds, who do not observe the liturgical calendar. Regardless of your persuasion concerning the liturgical calendar (read Romans 14), I think there is something here for all of us.
What intrigues me about Shrove Monday, Shrove Tuesday (or whatever you like to call it), Ash Wednesday and the entire Lenten period is the spiritual overtones that the tradition should communicate to worshipers. Now, I realize that this is often not the case. This holiday, just like Easter, Christmas, or any other holiday quickly becomes meaningless if we allow it to. I can not begin to recount how many people from both Protestant and Catholic backgrounds have told me that they have no clue what Shrove Monday, Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Lent are really all about. But then many people from many Christian traditions have no clue what Christmas or Easter are really all about either.
Shrove Monday and Shrove Tuesday should properly serve as a time of spiritual preparation for Lent. This component of meals and meal preparation tangibly reinforcing an upcoming holiday and season of repentance brings to mind traditional Passover preparations. Passover preparations involve, not only throwing out any leaven in the house, but sweeping and dusting the cabinets to insure that not one speck of leaven is left in the house.
Lent should properly serve as a time of spiritual preparation for Easter, one of Christianity’s two most highly revered holidays. Lent provides a 40-day season to reflect on our spiritual state, pray, repent of sin that has crept into our life, and practice alms-giving and some self-denial. This is not a bad thing whether your church tradition follows the liturgical calendar or not. We all benefit from occasionally stopping to reflect on where we have been, confessing sin we have gotten into, fasting and prayer, and being reminded to remember the poor.
The pre-Lenten and Lenten season can be a time of tremendous spiritual blessing - to us and to those around us. The choice will remain ours: will we stop our busyness long enough to remember God or will we be too busy with our own lives to stop and hear that still small voice?
Post a Comment