Shrovetide: Confession and Pancakes

In honor of the last two days of Shrovetide, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show today and tomorrow to talk about Confession and Pancakes with Matt Swaim or Annie Mitchell. Today (live) at 7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central during the first of the two "local" Ohio/Kentucky hours and tomorrow (repeated) during the national EWTN hour (exact time TBD). Listen live here today and the repeat here tomorrow.

Lent starts Wednesday so there's just two more days for spiritual and practical preparation for the 40 days of fasting, praying, and almsgiving. Here is a good description of this season:

Shrove Tuesday is the last day of what traditionally was called "Shrovetide," the weeks preceding the beginning of Lent. The word itself, Shrovetide, is the English equivalent for "Carnival," which is derived from the Latin words carnem levare, meaning "to take away the flesh." (Note that in Germany, this period is called "Fasching," and in parts of the United States, particularly Louisiana, "Mardi Gras.") While this was seen as the last chance for merriment, and, unfortunately in some places, has resulted in excessive pleasure, Shrovetide was the time to cast off things of the flesh and to prepare spiritually for Lent.

Actually, the English term provides the best meaning for this period. "To shrive" meant to hear confessions. In the Anglo-Saxon "Ecclesiastical Institutes," recorded by Theodulphus and translated by Abbot Aelfric about AD 1000, Shrovetide was described--as follows: "In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him as he then may hear by his deeds what he is to do in the way of penance." To highlight the point and motivate the people, special plays or masques were performed which portrayed the passion of our Lord or final judgment. Clearly, this Shrovetide preparation for Lent included the confessing of sin and the reception of absolution; as such, Lent then would become a time for penance and renewal of faith.

While this week of Shrovetide condoned the partaking of pleasures from which a person would abstain during Lent, Shrove Tuesday had a special significance in England. Pancakes were prepared and enjoyed, because in so doing a family depleted their eggs, milk, butter, and fat which were part of the Lenten fast. At this time, some areas of the Church abstained from all forms of meat and animal products, while others made exceptions for food like fish. For example, Pope St. Gregory (d. 604), writing to St. Augustine of Canterbury, issued the following rule: "We abstain from flesh, meat, and from all things that come from flesh, as milk, cheese, and eggs." These were the fasting rules governing the Church in England; hence, the eating of pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. 

As Pieter Bruegel the Elder depicted in The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (above), we can get carried away with the possible excesses of Carnival/Fasching/Shrovetide/Mardi Gras--we don't want to incur sins of gluttony or drunkenness just before the season of penitence and repentance!! Otherwise, you could end up like the carnival goer in this painting: waking up in jail the next morning (Ash Wednesday) after sleeping it off!

Shrovetide seems to achieve the right balance: spiritually preparing for Lent with confession of sins and penance while practically getting ready for fasting and abstinence by using up what you won't be using any more from Ash Wednesday to Easter!


Here is a recipe for pancakes from the Tudor era: specifically, from The good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin from 1588:

To make the pancakes:

Take new thicke Creame a pinte, four of five yolks of Egs, a good handful of flower, and two or three spoonfuls of ale, strain them altogether into a faire platter, and season it with a good handful of Sugar, a sooneful of Synamon and a little Ginger: then take a frying pan, and put in a little peece of Butter, as but as your thombe, and when it is molten browne, cast it out of your pan, and with a ladle put to the furthesr side of your pan some of your stuffe, and hole your pan aslope, so that you stuffe may run abroad all ouer all the pan, as thin as may be: then set it to the fyre, and let the fyre be verie soft, and when the one side is bakes, then turne the other, and bake them as dry as ye can without burning.

After one Tudor housewife starting making her pancakes, she heard the church bells ring and ran to church, carrying the frying pan with a pancake in it, still wearing her apron, and tying a scarf around her head--and that's how the tradition of Pancake Races began. Since 1950, ladies in Olney, England and Liberal, Kansas (USA) have competed in the International Pancake Day races!

On Friday, March 8, I'll prepare for our resumption of the series on Blessed John Henry Newman. The topic for Monday, March 11 on the Son Rise Morning Show is Conscience and Authority!

The End of Shrovetide

In honor of the last two days of Shrovetide, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show today and tomorrow to talk about Confession and Pancakes with Annie Mitchell. Today at 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central during one of the two "local" Ohio/Kentucky hours and tomorrow during the national EWTN hour (TBD). Listen live here today and here tomorrow.

Lent starts Wednesday so there's just two more days for spiritual and practical preparation for the 40 days of fasting, praying, and almsgiving. Here is a good source for a description of this season:

Shrove Tuesday is the last day of what traditionally was called "Shrovetide," the weeks preceding the beginning of Lent. The word itself, Shrovetide, is the English equivalent for "Carnival," which is derived from the Latin words carnem levare, meaning "to take away the flesh." (Note that in Germany, this period is called "Fasching," and in parts of the United States, particularly Louisiana, "Mardi Gras.") While this was seen as the last chance for merriment, and, unfortunately in some places, has resulted in excessive pleasure, Shrovetide was the time to cast off things of the flesh and to prepare spiritually for Lent.

Actually, the English term provides the best meaning for this period. "To shrive" meant to hear confessions. In the Anglo-Saxon "Ecclesiastical Institutes," recorded by Theodulphus and translated by Abbot Aelfric about AD 1000, Shrovetide was described--as follows: "In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him as he then may hear by his deeds what he is to do in the way of penance." To highlight the point and motivate the people, special plays or masques were performed which portrayed the passion of our Lord or final judgment. Clearly, this Shrovetide preparation for Lent included the confessing of sin and the reception of absolution; as such, Lent then would become a time for penance and renewal of faith.

While this week of Shrovetide condoned the partaking of pleasures from which a person would abstain during Lent, Shrove Tuesday had a special significance in England. Pancakes were prepared and enjoyed, because in so doing a family depleted their eggs, milk, butter, and fat which were part of the Lenten fast. At this time, some areas of the Church abstained from all forms of meat and animal products, while others made exceptions for food like fish. For example, Pope St. Gregory (d. 604), writing to St. Augustine of Canterbury, issued the following rule: "We abstain from flesh, meat, and from all things that come from flesh, as milk, cheese, and eggs." These were the fasting rules governing the Church in England; hence, the eating of pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.

Here is a recipe for pancakes from the Tudor era: specifically, from The good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin from 1588:

To make the pancakes:

Take new thicke Creame a pinte, four of five yolks of Egs, a good handful of flower, and two or three spoonfuls of ale, strain them altogether into a faire platter, and season it with a good handful of Sugar, a sooneful of Synamon and a little Ginger: then takea frying pan, and put in a little peece of Butter, as but as your thombe, and when it is molten browne, cast it out of your pan, and with a ladle put to the furthesr side of your pan some of your stuffe, and hole your pan aslope, so that you stuffe may run abroad all ouer all the pan, as thin as may be: then set it to the fyre, and let the fyre be verie soft, and when the one side is bakes, then turne the other, and bake them as dry as ye can without burning.

After one Tudor housewife starting making her pancakes, she heard the church bells ring and ran to church, carrying the frying pan with a pancake in it, still wearing her apron, and tying a scarf around her head--and that's how the tradition of Pancake Races began. Since 1950, ladies in Olney, England and Liberal, Kansas (USA) have competed in the International Pancake Day races!

Two more days to decide what you're going to "do" and what you're "not" going to do during Lent: turn off TV, stay off facebook, go to Stations of the Cross on Friday, etc. Two more days to make your Lenten reading selection: a day by day devotional or a classic. During the Septuagesima season, I started reading a book of meditations by St. Ephrem the Syrian:

A collection of hymns, compiled from the writings of St. Ephraim by Bishop Theophan the Recluse. This book, which long constituted one of the favorite sources of reading for monastics in prerevolutionary Russia, has become our best-seller. A beautiful book.

This collection of hymns, compiled from the writings of St. Ephraim by Bishop Theophan of Poltava, was long considered one of the favorite sources of reading for monastics in prerevolutionary Russia. Printed on Bible quality paper, especially case-bound.

I bought my copy at Eighth Day Books, but it seems to be temporarily (I hope) out of print!

Saints and Beauty: Pope Benedict XVI's "Holy Men and Women"

Father Benedict, the former Pope Benedict XVI and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, expressed the link between beauty and holiness often, for example, in this message to a gathering of Communion and Liberation in 2002:

Nothing can bring us into close contact with the beauty of Christ himself other than the world of beauty created by faith and light that shines out from the faces of the saints, through whom his own light becomes visible.

Another great quotation extends that link to its impact on evangelization and apologetics:

I have often affirmed my conviction that the true apology of Christian faith, the most convincing demonstration of its truth…are the saints and the beauty that the faith has generated.

In this volume of addresses from his General Audiences in 2010 and 2011, Pope Benedict XVI beautifully conveyed the individual holiness of each of these Holy Men and Women of the Middle Ages and Beyond. For each saint (or holy man and woman NOT yet canonized), he delineates what made them holy, how they "let Jesus so totally overwhelm their life that they could say with Saint Paul, "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal. 2:20)" (chapter 36, "Holiness"). Pope Benedict presents them as examples for us to follow to be united with Jesus--he points out their special contributions to the Church and the world and does not neglect to speak of their difficulties with Church hierarchy or their own communities. 

Benedict dedicated three addresses to Saints Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas, and two to St. Hildegard of Bingen, whom he had canonized. He highlights many of the great saints of the Counter-reformation or Catholic reformation era, but omits St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Philip Neri from his survey; obviously there is a big chronological gap between St. Alphonsus Liguori and St. Therese of Lisieux, the two saints he describes last.

He did speak of St. Ignatius in 2006:

On April 22, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI presided over a Eucharistic concelebration for the Society of Jesus. He addressed the fathers and brothers of the Society present at the Vatican Basilica, calling to mind the dedication and fidelity of their founder.

“St. Ignatius of Loyola was first and foremost a man of God who in his life put God, his greatest glory and his greatest service, first,” the Pope said. “He was a profoundly prayerful man for whom the daily celebration of the Eucharist was the heart and crowning point of his day.”

“Precisely because he was a man of God, St Ignatius was a faithful servant of the Church,” Benedict continued, recalling the saint's “special vow of obedience to the Pope, which he himself describes as 'our first and principal foundation.'”Highlighting the need for “an intense spiritual and cultural training,” Pope Benedict called upon the Society of Jesus to follow in the footsteps of St. Ignatius and continue his work of service to the Church and obedience to the Pope, so that it's members “may faithfully meet the urgent needs of the Church today.”

I'm not sure that Pope Benedict wrote much about St. Philip Neri.

Since Pope Francis is encouraging Catholics to visit their parishes for Confession and Adoration today, it does seem appropriate to cite his predecessor's comments about St. Alphonsus Liguori and the forgiveness of sins:

In his day, there was a very strict and widespread interpretation of moral life because of the Jansenist mentality which, instead of fostering trust and hope in God’s mercy, fomented fear and presented a grim and severe face of God, very remote from the face revealed to us by Jesus. Especially in his main work entitled Moral Theology, St Alphonsus proposed a balanced and convincing synthesis of the requirements of God’s law, engraved on our hearts, fully revealed by Christ and interpreted authoritatively by the Church, and of the dynamics of the conscience and of human freedom, which precisely in adherence to truth and goodness permit the person’s development and fulfilment.

Alphonsus recommended to pastors of souls and confessors that they be faithful to the Catholic moral doctrine, assuming at the same time a charitable, understanding and gentle attitude so that penitents might feel accompanied, supported and encouraged on their journey of faith and of Christian life.

St Alphonsus never tired of repeating that priests are a visible sign of the infinite mercy of God who forgives and enlightens the mind and heart of the sinner so that he may convert and change his life. In our epoch, in which there are clear signs of the loss of the moral conscience and — it must be recognized — of a certain lack of esteem for the sacrament of Confession, St Alphonsus’ teaching is still very timely.

Reading this book does whet my appetite for the other two series, on the early Church Fathers from Clement of Rome to St. Augustine and on the Father and Teachers of the Church from Leo the Great to Peter Lombard, especially the latter, which I've already ordered on my Kindle!

This Morning, On the Son Rise Morning Show

Today is Shrove Tuesday, so Matt Swaim and I will be talking about pancakes and Confession on the Son Rise Morning Show--a little earlier than usual, at 7:35 a.m. Eastern or 6;35 a.m. Central, right after the bottom of the hour newscast with Anna Mitchell.

Between celebrating the Septuagesima Season each Sunday at the Church of St. Anthony of Padua here in Wichita (Extraordinary Form), reading about the Septuagesima Season, reading about Cheesefair and Meatfair Sundays in the Eastern Rite before the Great Fast, and reading Blessed John Henry Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermons on Septuagesima and Lent in preparation for my Newman lecture (did I mention it's tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at Newman University?), I think I am just about ready for Lent! I've also ordered this beautiful CD (Miserere: A Sequence of Music for Lent, St. Joseph, and the Annunciation by The Choir of Westminster Cathedral from Hyperion Records) which is on its way for arrival later this week.

Listen live here as I report on the annual International Pancake Day races!

Shrovetide on Monday's Son Rise Morning Show

This is just a preview of a coming event: tomorrow I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central to discuss Shrovetide with Matt Swaim. We'll talk about the spiritual and practical aspects of Shrovetide, the meaning of the word, pancakes, and the International Pancake Day Race competition between Olney in England and Liberal, Kansas!

You can listen live here.