"May everyday of the year be a Shrove Tuesday"
Jeremy Taylor
My Pastoral Theology professor so aptly said this morning in class, "Shrove Tuesday is not the Middle English word for pancake." Ah, but is it? I turned to
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to see what is written on the matter. The OED notes that Shrove Tuesday is often referred to as "pancake day." In 1764, OED cites the reference, "let glad Shrove-Tuesday bring the pancake thin." There is even a reference to an ancient Celtic practice of ritually sacrificing a cock or hen to be eaten on this day. Thankfully, however, tons of pancake batter is beginning to be prepared all over for Shrove Tuesday.
So which is the best understanding of Shrove Tuesday? Who would dare buck the OED?
Well, my professor was alluding to the meaning of the root of
shrove, which is past tense for the word
shrive. Here the OED says quite clearly that
shrive means:
"To impose penance upon (a person); hence, to administer absolution to; to hear the confession of."
Thus, the reference to the real meaning of Shrove Tuesday is not lost on carbohydrates. It's about confession, preparation for the following day of Ash Wednesday. Jeremy Taylor's above quotation thus makes complete sense--everyday should be a day in which we offer up our confession and receive absolution and penance from the Church.
Pancakes, or at least the idea of a carnival, is appropriate so long as the meaning of the day is not lost. The historic notion of "suspending the rules" and allowing people to blow off some steam is well within the tradition of Mardi Gras and any festival prior to the beginning of Lent. In England, there is an old tradition of the "boy bishop" or dressing up a young boy in episcopal vestments as a way of illustrating the point of temporarily dispensing the rules.
Go, eat your pancakes and be merry. Confess your sins and receive absolution so that you may be well on your way to keeping a solemn, holy Lent. Enjoy.
My theology professor, now retired, The Rev. Dr. Robert Hughes offers us another way of looking at this passage. In his recent magnum opus, Beloved Dust: Tides of the Spirit in the Christian Life (New York: Continuum, 2008), Hughes offers us the analogy of human beings as the beloved stardust of creation. "Human beings are best conceived by as materialistic an anthropology as possible. I am proposing that we use the metaphor of dust, beloved dust, though by this I mean the stardust of creation, matter much as conceived by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, not merely the dust of the dustbin, though that is included" (Hughes, 7). Hughes goes on to describe that this beloved dust is animated, spirited, estranged, and redeemed dust. I thoroughly enjoy my copy and highly recommend this important work on the mission and theology of the Holy Spirit as a companion and guide to the spiritual life.
