My confession... I've never known what Ash Wednesday, or Pancake day were besides strange things written on my calendar every year. And Lent? Didn't know about that either!
I looked at my calendar today and noticed that this week we have Pancake Day (or Shrove Tuesday) and Ash Wednesday. Curious, I decided to look them up. I had no idea these were actually Christian holidays!
According to Wikipedia, Lent is the 40 day period before Easter. It starts with Ash Wednesday. I had not known this before! And the day before that is called Shrove Tuesday, or more commonly known as Pancake day. I decided, why not actually make a pancake supper tomorrow to celebrate? Little tidbit of info on pancake day, apparently in Newfoundland (Canada) it is tradition to bake little things into the pancakes for people to find, each item having it's own little meaning if you were the one to find it in your food. Interesting! I don't think I'll be doing that though, I might choke on something (or my hubby might... we don't want that!).
For some people, it is common to not eat any meat on the Wednesdays and Fridays of lent... except fish. I thought, why not try to do that? I enjoy fish, we could make Wednesdays and Fridays our fish days (or meatless days... I like to do that sometimes too) for the next few weeks leading up to Easter!
Anyway, for the 40 days of Lent it is custom for people to do three things; pray, fast, and give 'alms'.
Prayer is something I like to do daily already, but to find more time for prayer I think I'll have to give up something that consumes a lot of my time as my 'fasting'. I'm strongly considering Facebook... I tend to spend a lot of time on there when I turn on my computer. I'm also thinking of taking and fasting from television the week leading up to Easter... or "Holy Week"... and might stretch that to include the computer as well.
As for the alms... I have a cousin who is going on missions overseas (as part of a worship team... he's a drummer and an awesome one at that) who is having fundraisers coming up... one during this season of lent. Then, I've also been wanting to go on a real good declutter of the house. I can give the things I declutter to non-profit organizations like MCC, or Salvation Army, or a variety of other places in the local area that take items to help those who need (there's another one... I can't remember the name, but they help single moms). I want to give away at least 40 things... one per day.
So, how about you? Have you ever celebrated Lent? Am I the only one out of the loop on this? Are you celebrating this year? If so, leave a comment telling me how you are going to be involved in Lent!
I'm excited! I want to try to do this sort of thing every year!
3 comments:
I've never done the Lent thing before either. In fact, I've never even heard of Pancake Day! It sounds like a really neat idea, though (but I have to agree with you on the whole hiding-stuff-in-food thing. That could be dangerous!)
Pancake Tuesday was intended for households to use up all their excess (fatty) foods in their larders preparation for fasting during the 40 days of Lent. A Lenten resolution is made on Ash Wednesday and the paper it is written on is burnt along with last year's palms (which get renewed on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter). Not eating red meat on Wednesdays and Fridays is in respect for Christ, who died on a Friday, and Ash Wednesday being the first day of Lent. I could go on ...
Thanks Cafe Chick! I knew about the use of excess on the Pancake day... it makes perfect sense. I didn't know about why red meat is fasted on Wednesdays an Fridays.. that is neat!
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