Pancake Day
Pancake Day, or Shrove Tuesday as it is known in the Christian Calendar, is celebrated on the day before Lent begins. The first day of Lent, is known as Ash Wednesday. The recipe for pancakes dates back to at least 1439 and pancakes are usually very thin.
If you have made pancakes from scratch, then you will know that the main ingredients are flour, eggs, milk and salt. But, do you know what they represent? The eggs represent Creation; flour, the staff of life; salt, wholesomeness and milk, purity, which can all be said to be characteristics of both God and Jesus.
One of the traditions for Pancake Day is in the making of them. In order to turn the pancake over in a frying pan you should flip or toss them up in the air, and for an extra £1 at St Thomas’s on Tuesday 25th February this can be done for you!
I mentioned that it is also called Shrove Tuesday and this stems from an old English word 'shrive', meaning to 'confess all sins', and is linked to Lent as a time for being sorry.
So Lent is an opportunity to spiritually refresh ourselves by shriving and also fasting: or in other words giving up something, such as chocolate, watching television or even using social media. The main point of fasting is self-discipline, and not wavering in the face of temptation.
And this is exactly what Jesus did when he went into the desert before he began his ministry. He went to spiritually refresh himself before he started on his new life. So for us, it can be a time to not just spiritually spring clean our lives, but to turn our lives around in order to prepare ourselves for the next journey or phase of our daily lives.
