A Liturgical Note For You: The Feast Before the Fast
Before we get to the feasting and fasting stuff, we talked last week about Sunday, Feb. 15 being “Transfiguration Sunday”. It has also been designated as “Freedom Sunday”. As with any other thematic Sunday that has been added to our calendar, the theme is not to take precedence over the Sunday of our liturgical calendar that unfolds the story of our salvation. So, on Transfiguration Sunday, the fact that this Sunday has also been designated as “Freedom Sunday” can be acknowledged in The Prayers of the People, mentioned perhaps in the sermon in connection to the hope of our salvation prefigured in the transfiguration, and celebrated with a hymn. Now, on to the feasting and fasting…
Shrove Tuesday
Shrove Tuesday: The word “shrove” comes from the English word shrive which means to be absolved of your sins through confession and penance. Christians traditionally went to confession to be “shriven” the day before Lent began. It has come to be known more for its pancakes though because this is also the day when Christians used up all of their fats and other good food before the season of fasting began. Waste not, want not, right? Anyway, fasting is one of the disciplines Christians and Jews use to turn their desires away from the things of the world that occupy their thoughts and to turn their focus instead toward God. You don’t necessarily need to give up food – or anything else – to do this. Isaiah passed along this message from God: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house: when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” (Is.58.6-7). Well, now…this should very much remind you of our baptismal promises. It is no coincidence that this reading comes very close to the start of the season which leads us to the font at Easter.
For Your Devotions: Ash Wednesday
Lent begins this day. The colour of the altar and other hangings is violet/purple. The paschal candle is removed from the church before your Ash Wednesday liturgies. It should not be seen again – except for funerals – throughout the entire season of Lent. The paschal candle re-emerges – preferably a new candle each year, actually – on Holy Saturday Evening at The Great Vigil of Easter. “Alleluia” is not sung or said during Lent even on Feast Days and at funerals. This isn’t because we are mournful or gloomy – Lent is a time of suppressed joy and excitement as we prepare ourselves for the greatest event of the Christian calendar…our passage into new life through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ! For the same reason, the Gloria is not sung or said during Lent and flowers are not placed in the church. All of the weekdays (not Sundays) are marked as days of discipline and self-denial to be observed, for example, with extra prayer and maybe doing without your favourite food. We’re saving ourselves for the big party after the Easter Vigil. J
Ashes
Ashes: On Ash Wednesday, we begin our Lenten journey with the centuries old practice of marking a cross on our foreheads with ashes made from last year’s palm branches. There are a few reasons why we put ashes on our foreheads on this day. First, in the bible, we find ashes used as a symbol of repentance. People throw ashes on their heads, sit in ashes, and even mix ashes in their food and drink. In our lives as Christians, we must continually repent (turn away from sin and turn toward God). Lent is the season through which we spend time in deliberate evaluation of our journey in Christ toward the awaited fullness of God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven. Secondly, ashes are a sign of our humanity and inevitable physical death: Remember you are dust and to dust you will return. Our bodies will return to dust until we are raised up by Christ. By receiving ashes and leaving them on our foreheads, we publicly proclaim our intent to die to our worldly desires and live even more in Christ’s image, which we focus on during the season of ‘rebirth’ that is Lent (a Latin term for ‘Spring’). As with Adam – who was created from the dust – we are sinners and only have new life in Christ, the new Adam. We are made a new creation through our baptism which is our pledge to live a new life according to the ways of God’s kingdom.
The Reverend Susan Montague Koyle