From the Rector's Desk

Dear friends,

February brings us to Lent, and right before Lent comes Shrove Tuesday. This year, unlike previous tradition at St. John’s, we are going to have a pancake supper. See the advertisement on page 6 for more information, and visit the website for additional information about this interesting new event.

Lent is the season of forty days of fasting before Easter, it generally begins sometime during February, but because Easter is what is called a “moveable feast” dependent on the phases of the moon, actually, the date of Lent’s onset can vary, ranging from 4 February to 10 March.

The name Lent comes from the Anglo Saxon word lenctene, meaning the time when the days lengthen—reminding us that Lent is a season heralding spring, the time when the nights begin to be shorter, and the days, therefore, longer. In Scotland, Lent was called Fasterns, and its names in Gaelic and Welsh likewise suggest the idea of fasting. In Latin, the word used is carnisprivium, which means deprivation of meat. The idea of fasting during Lent, while it has a complicated tradition, is probably connected to the story in the gospels about Jesus fasting for forty days in the desert, which, itself, reflects Israel’s 40 year wandering in the desert.

Lent is preceded by Shrovetide, that is, the time when people made their pre-Lenten confessions, which were called, in old English, shrifts. At this time, all meat and other foods forbidden during Lent had to be consumed so that the larders would be clean of those things which were not to be enjoyed until Easter. That last minute consumption orgy led to an atmosphere of hurried feasting and carnival—a word which comes from the Latin carnelevarium—the taking away of meat.

In England on Monday before Ash Wednesday, the Monday before the beginning of Lent was called Collop Monday because the meat forbidden during Lent was consumed in the form of collops or rashers, that is, bacon, which we now eat with eggs. Mutton chops were also much favored at this season.

So, why does this lead to pancakes on Tuesday? The connection has never been absolutely clear to me, since all of those items which had to be used up before Lent do not seem seriously connected to pancakes. Some sources suggest that pancakes were made with butter or lard and those items were to be avoided during Lent, so making a lot of pancakes was a good way of doing that before Lent. One never knows. So much of popular religious tradition has very little to do with actual Christianity, and much of it is buried in the mists of history and tradition and folklore.

These days, when so few people take even Lent very seriously, making such a big deal of Shrove Tuesday may seem anachronistic. But the occasional anachronism is not a bad deal. When we live lives surrounded by our computers and our e-mail, in rooms filled with sound from CDs and DVDs, connected to the internet and to cable television service with seven hundred channels, in such aggressively modern times, it is not a bad thing to take a pause and go back and enjoy something which has its roots in medieval England. After all, that is where our roots are and Christianity—especially Anglicanism—is a historical religion.

So, put the date on your calendar, Shrove Tuesday, 24 February, 2004, at 6:45 p.m. in the Parish Hall. And bring your appetites. Pancakes are pretty filling.

The Rev’d Lloyd E. Prator
Rector