Ash Wednesday

When Is Shrove Tuesday 2017, What Is Ash Wednesday And Why Do We Eat Pancakes? Here's All You Need To Know

... the first day of Lent. But where does the tradition for eating the tasty batter treats on Shrove Tuesday come from – and when is it this year. Here’s everything you need to know…. When is Shrove Tuesday in 2017. Shrove Tuesday (aka Pancake Day) is taking place on Tuesday February 28. Shrove Tuesday falls on the last day before Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. This year, Shrove Tuesday (aka Pancake Day ) is taking place on Tuesday February 28 (TODAY!) – so get that lemon and sugar – or possibly Nutella – at the ready. Shrove Tuesday always falls 47 days before Easter Sunday – so the date varies each year but will be between February 3 and March 9. What is Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is the day after Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day and this year is on March 1. It marks the start of Lent, where people over the globe give up certain foods or habits to improve their health or demonstrate self-restraint. The fasting period of Lent lasts for 40 days until Easter, but this is without Sundays being ...

Ash Wednesday Reminds Us That Salvation Is A Team Sport

... a team sport. Terrance W. Klein February 28, 2017. Ash Wednesday reminds us that salvation is a team sport. Women wear the mark of ashes at St. Helen Church in Glendale, Arizona. (CNS photo/Nancy Wiechec). In Spanish it is called tira y aloja, literally, “pull and loosen.” The Italians have two different phrases, depending upon whether one is speaking figuratively or literally. The figurative, braccio di ferro, means “arm of iron.” The game itself is called tiro alla fune, “pull at the rope.” That is quite close to the French tir à la corde. One of our English terms is prosaic, “rope pull,” like the German Tauziehen. The other is more provocative, bringing out the essentially communal nature of the game: “tug of war.”. Tug of war builds teams, because it requires a disparate group of people to pull as one. Their individual strengths are multiplied, and weakness anywhere in the line can be exploited. As any camp counselor knows, if you want strangers to begin to rely on each other, to see that they are all in this together, make ...

Invitation Offered On Ash Wednesday Not Just Verbal, It Is Tangible

... in which religious experience is not confined to the cerebral. Rather, the sights, sounds, smells, tastes that we encounter, the things we touch, and the bodily postures that we assume, have deep significance for our lived faith. Indeed, in recent years, the academic study of religion has paid increasing attention to this area of materiality. It is a world in which a gesture often means more than a thousand words. Physical penance. In this regard, I often think of Rodrigo Mendoza , the slave-trader played by Robert De Niro in the film The Mission (1986). Having confessed his sins to the Jesuit, Fr Gabriel (Jeremy Irons), including the murder of his own brother, Mendoza is assigned an agonisingly harsh penance. He is strapped to a heavy cache of his former weapons, which he must drag through the torturous terrain of the Paraguayan rainforest to the Jesuit mission where he is to stay. At one point, having ...

The Church As A Midwife

... see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. On the Cross, Jesus is going to look like every other slave and rebel who’s ever died naked and ashamed on a cross. Jesus is going to be humiliated and all the people who followed Him are going to be too. And so, right before all that happens, Jesus draws them in close and tells them a couple of things about suffering, and what kind of community they have to be for one another. He reminds them of the miracle that all of us know about but so easily forget. One that happens every day in every town and city all over the world. A woman goes through tremendous amounts of pain, she pushes her body to the edge of death, and then after hours, sometimes days of pain, a corner has been turned and she never looks back. She, in the words of Jesus, forgets the anguish. I’ve seen this 5 times personally, and everytime I feel like I’m in the face of a miracle. My wife was screaming and weeping in one moment, and the next nothing but pure joy. When she holds our ...

What Is Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday, And How Do We Celebrate

... is a day of fasting and reflection. It is also the first day of Lent on the Christian calendar. Lent last 46 days, and ends on Easter. Traditionally, one will give up something during the Lenten season in commemoration of the 40-day fast Jesus experienced in the Judaean Desert. Lent last 40 days with the six Sundays that fall within the period being non-fasting days. It gets its name - official the “Day of Ashes,” -  because of the practice of rubbing ashes on one’s forehead in the sign of a cross. Why the name Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. The name is believed to have come from the practice of eating richer, fatty foods prior to fasting during the Lenten season. How is the date for Mardi Gras determined. You better sit down for this one. The date of Mardi Gras is determined by the date of Easter. Mardi Gras is 47 days before Easter.  Easter is the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, or ecclesiastical full moon, which is the first full moon on ...

Church Marks Ash Wednesday Today To Usher In Lent

... “Once again, we humbly ask you to help us in this undertaking. We appeal to you to support the Fast 2 Feed of Pondo ng Pinoy’s Hapag-Asa program,” Tagle said in a pastoral letter. The pastoral letter is to be read on Ash Wednesday in parishes under the Archdiocese of Manila. P 10 a day. Tagle said it would take only P 1,200 for six months, or P 10 a day, to nourish back to health a hungry and undernourished child. “In this season of Lent, we are especially called to imitate the generosity of God, particularly toward the poor and disadvantaged,” Tagle said. Lent, a season of fasting, reflection and prayer, begins on Ash Wednesday. The season leads to the commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter. Ash Wednesday is observed by fasting and abstinence, as well as wearing ash on the forehead as a reminder of human sinfulness, mortality, mourning and repentance. The ash is ...

The Harvard Crimson

... canon, tells you that you aren’t enough. You, as an individual, are not enough, you are incomplete. You need someone else. There are a few of those self-validating “ Fight Song ” I’m-fine-on-my-own type numbers, but for every one of those there are many more crying for or lamenting our imagined other halves. We are drowning in liturgies that remind us of our loneliness. Furthermore, for those of us lucky enough to have landed a relationship, the same liturgies tell us that our worth and happiness are understood only with respect to the relationship. In the end, the radio station was right. A 40-day respite from pop culture worked wonders for me. I had never felt more free, more hopeful, or more at peace on an Easter Sunday than I did last year. That some of my most difficult days at Harvard transpired within that Lenten period only made the result more uplifting. Spending more time than usual listening to jazz and classical ...

Ancient Tradition Still Thrives In Modern Times

... because they “get a sense of repentance and a kind of solidarity in it.”. “Clearly it touches on a deep sense of Catholic tradition in a way few other symbols do,” he told CNS Feb. 17. For many, it also links them to childhood tradition of getting ashes. It also links them, even if they are unaware of its origins, to an ancient Church tradition. The priest said the use of ashes goes back to Old Testament times when sackcloth and ashes were worn as signs of penance. The Church incorporated this practice in the eighth century when those who committed grave sins known to the public had to do public penitence, sprinkled with ashes. But by the Middle Ages, the practice of penance and marking of ashes became something for the whole Church. Ash Wednesday also is one of two days, along with Good Friday, that are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence for Catholic adults—meaning no eating meat and eating only one full meal and two smaller meals. The other key aspect of the day is that it is the start of the 40 days of prayer, fasting and almsgiving of Lent. “Ash Wednesday can be a little bit like New Year’s ...