Emily Mellott: I'd probably say that Shrove Tuesday is a
religious holiday that's not actually a religious holiday.
Brian Jemmott: In my experience of Shrove Tuesday, we've
always had an opportunity for folks to come to church and in most cases have pancake supper.
Ben Maddison: Shrove Tuesday is our last opportunity to
sin before Lent, I always tell my congregation that you've got to make it a good one, so
we eat as many pancakes as we possibly can in a feast of the resurrection before lead
starts.
Kara Slade: Now, I grew up in a part of the country and
the central Gulf Coast where we observed Mardi Gras and Mardi Gras was a huge production.
We had parades and balls and all kinds of parties. The principle behind Mardi Gras and
Shrove Tuesday is very similar. It just works itself out a little differently from different
parts of the world.
Martin Oguike: Shrove Tuesday started as a day to go to church
and confess your sins before you begin the season of Lent. The word shrove is the past
tense of shrive, which is to go and confess your sins.
Emily Mellott: It's from the same impulse as Mardi Gras.
It's carnival. It's a goodbye party for all of the indulgences that we give up when we're
going into this season of Lent. Before we clear away all of the clutter in our lives,
we throw it a goodbye party.
Brian Jemmott: Coming from another part of the Anglican communion
Trinidad and Tobago. It's carnival Tuesday, which is in some places known as Fat Tuesday,
Mardi Gras, which is what that means. And that was an opportunity for folks to really
have a lot of revelry and be in a very partying mood.
Ben Maddison: As we head into penitential season, it was
a necessary for families in the medieval era and maybe even into the 16th and 17th centuries
to use up all of the goods that otherwise wouldn't get used until after Lent was done.
The butter, the baking, and that is why we make so many pancakes.
Emily Mellott: It's not in the church calendar as a special
religious holiday, but that because we're about to do something big, we celebrate beforehand.
We clear out the clutter in our lives.
Kara Slade: Lent is a time of abstinence or a penitent.
So on Shrove Tuesday or on Mardi Gras, we celebrate. It's kind of the last thing before,
before lent begins.
Brian Jemmott: The overindulgence I think is really a last
opportunity before we get into the solemnity of Lent to kind of overdo, because those are
the kinds of things that you're going to be removing from your daily life during Lent
so that you use them in excess on Shrove Tuesday because once Ash Wednesday hit, those things
that you would normally have indulged in excessively on Shrove Tuesday would perhaps not be part
of your regular habits during Lent beginning on Ash Wednesday.
Kara Slade: The word shrove comes from the same word shriven,
which means to confess. So there was also a tradition in some parts of historic Christianity
that people would make their confession on that day before Lent begins. And so this is
a wonderful time to come together with your church family to celebrate and to get ready
together for the beginning of Lent the next day. There should be a real contrast between
the celebratory mood of Shrove Tuesday and then the sort of solemnity of Ash Wednesday.
Ben Maddison: It's a joyous time. One of the things that
our church does is we bury the Hallelujah flag. So Hallelujah, it's a joyful word of
celebration. It gets used a lot during Easter, but in Lent it goes away. So one of the ways
that we mark that occasion is we bury it. We gather all the kids, we go outside, we
shout hallelujah at the top of our lungs at about 8:00, 8:30 to annoy the neighbors. And
then we bury it and we say goodbye for 40 days until we joyously resurrect it on the
same day that Christ is resurrected.