Lent: Then and Now
Today is Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day, or Mardi Gras, depending on your religion, location, and frame of mind. But any way you look at it, today is the last day before Ash Wednesday, when Lent officially begins. It’s interesting that the Mardi Gras season, with its parties and gluttonous meals, begins with 12 th Night (twelve days after Christmas) and runs through today, while Lent -- and fasting -- only lasts 40 days. Shrove derives from the verb to shrive -- to obtain absolution for one's sins, usually through confession and penance. Mardi Gras , translated to Fat Tuesday, so named because it marks your last chance for rich, calorie-ridden food before the fasting of Lent begins. Things have changed a lot since the days when I attended a Catholic boarding school. Back then, fasting (no meat) and abstinence (limiting your daily eating to only one full meal in a day) were observed on both Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent. At school,...