Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Pancakes and ashes: Preparing for a Holy Lent

 Today in the last day before Lent, and we traditionally have one more celebration with pancakes on "Shrove Tuesday." The word is past tense of "shrive," which means to confess. The idea came that we "shrive" by eating up the remaining fat from the pantries and prepare for the 40 days of Lenten fasting and devotion.  Today is also sometimes called "Fat Tuesday."

Tonight our young adults at St. Paul's will serve pancakes, so come if you can. The pancakes will be drenched in real maple syrup.

Tomorrow our Ash Wednesday services will be at 7:30 am, 12:10 pm, 5:30 pm and 7:30 pm (with choir). The ashes are made with the palms from last year's Palm Sunday. I burned the palms and ground the ashes on Monday.

There is a great deal going on at St. Paul's this Lent. For now, let me commend to you a series of meditations written by members of St. Paul's for each day of Lent, beginning with a reflection tomorrow Anna Askounis. The mediations are a gift from the people of St. Paul's Memorial Church, and come in a booklet that is yours for the asking.

We've put the mediations on a blog; a new mediation will appear each day on this new blog. The name of the blog is Lenten Devotions 2012, and you can access this site at lenten2012.blogspot.com or  by clicking HERE. I hope you will bookmark this site and go back each day for a few minutes. You can also leave your own reflections in the comment section of each entry.

Thanks to all of our authors, and especially to Ann Ribble for coordinating and editing this huge effort.

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