The Skinny on Fat Tuesday
Today is Fat Tuesday and we are eating pancakes and having our last taste of the wonderfully delicious foods we are fasting over Lent. Those things include sweeties/candy for the kids [they thought that up] and caffeine for me and chocolate for the whole family.
My fundamentalist/protestant background has not prepared me to write a decent blog post on the benefits of Fat Tuesday and so, along with Alan Hartung, I ask for someone else to give the skinny on the historical and theological underpinnings of this religious celebration. And in the meantime, I will keep drinking my coffee and nibbling on chocolate before my 40 days begins.
More info on Wikipedia (Shrove Tuesday). Did you know "carnival" means "farewell to the flesh"? See Catholic roots
Speaking of pancakes, you really must see the crepe i made that looked exactly like Beavis from Beavis and Butthead.
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I think Pancake Day - which is what I knew it as when I was in England - originated as a day to use up the food you need to use up before Lent since you're not have any use for it for the next 40 days.
Maybe it's a day to celebrate because you're also using up the celebrating you're going to have no use for when you get into traditional Lent mourning. ;-)
(Until Easter, anyway - then you can celebrate as much as you like)
Posted by: Helen | February 20, 2007 at 02:45 PM
Carnival's right.
It's trickster night, when the fat lady sings ;-)
Posted by: Kester | February 20, 2007 at 05:04 PM
Lent blogging is something that I am very unfamiliar with and am trying this year for the first time.
The pancake thing really confuses me, they do that here at asbury, but I am going for chicken wings tonight and plenty of soda. After that it is to all water for lent and no "un-natural" foods.
Posted by: chad | February 20, 2007 at 08:46 PM
I found a link to this page http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Lent/ on another blog.
I haven't really explored it yet but it may be of help.
After hearing about Lent for so many years I figured that I should find out what it's all about this year.
Posted by: Rodney Olsen | February 20, 2007 at 10:07 PM
CRI/Voice Institute has some good, easy to understand information on Lent, and daily readings from the Book of Common Prayer.
Mars Hill has info on Lent and how they are observing it also.
Posted by: spors | February 20, 2007 at 11:10 PM
I'm going the whole hog this year with coffee and red wine sidelined.
Last year I gave up sweet cakes and it actually transformed the way I have approached them since.
I imagine it will do something similar with these two items also.
No wine, coffee or blogging... I am running out of idols!
But maybe that's the idea
Posted by: hamo | February 20, 2007 at 11:11 PM
hi andrew, the pancakes were traditionally to use up all the eggs, butter, milk and cream which, along with all other animal products were traditionally abstained from during Lent. I did a series of seven posts on the reasons why, the Lent food, the meaning of giving up, the feast days that break the fast, etc etc., starting here:
http://maggidawn.typepad.com/maggidawn/2005/02/giving_it_up_i.html
hope that helps! happy lent.
Posted by: maggi | February 21, 2007 at 05:13 PM
thanks maggi. i thought it was something like that.
Posted by: andrew jones | February 21, 2007 at 08:31 PM