It’s Shrovetide!
(Yes, that’s a real thing)
Dear friends,
Did you know that last Sunday began a season-within-a-season in this season of Epiphany? Gesimatide, or Shrovetide, began on February 5, the third Sunday before Ash Wednesday. That Sunday is called Septuagesima, from the Latin meaning “the seventieth.” The following two Sundays are Sexagesima and the majestically named Quinquagesima – marking very roughly 60 and 50 days respectively before Easter.
The 17 days of Shrovetide are a time of spiritual preparation for Lent, gently easing us from the joy and glory of Epiphany to the somber reality of Ash Wednesday. According to the First Council of Orleans in 511 AD, it was a time when “many pious ecclesiastics and lay persons of the primitive Church used to fast seventy days before Easter, and their fast was called, therefore, Septuagesima, a name which was afterwards retained to distinguish this Sunday from others.”
And while I’m not going to fast right now, and I’m not telling you to do so either, it is a good time to begin taking stock, to ask ourselves what God might be calling us to do, or not do, during Lent. I think it also fits in with the dullness of February, this time when we are waiting for the end of winter and the beginning of spring. We are getting ready to get ready, slowly taking stock of what we might need to make part of our spiritual spring-cleaning.
Join me these next 2 weeks in praying that God will help each one of us to get ready, so that we will be ready to enter into the reality of Lent together, and to prepare eventually for the great Paschal feast.
Yours in Christ,
The Rev. Cn. Dr. Kara Slade, Associate Rector
P.S., One of my favorite YouTube videos of all time is this piece on February by local St. Louis journalist Kevin Killeen. I hope it gives you a laugh too.