To hate it being called pancake tuesday

[scrambledeggsandbeans]

Just that really, it's shrove Tuesday it is the traditional feast day before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Lent – the 40 days leading up to Easter – was traditionally a time of fasting

Big is a relative term. I possibly made it sound bigger than it actually is. It's still only about 2% of the population but I guess it is quite visible because there are a lot of CoI churches in towns and villages from the days of british rule. Obviously a lot of the churches are no longer in use.

The line now is that whatever you give up is your own personal devotion, so it's up to you whether you carry on with it on Sundays or have a day off. Both can be justified theologically - on the one hand, Sunday is always the day of the Resurrection so should always have an element of celebration, even in a penitential season; on the other hand, even the Sundays in Lent have a liturgically penitential slant, and they're called First Sunday of Lent, not First Sunday around Lent. 😁 The programme that I do allows us to relax one discipline on Sundays (e.g. we could have pudding, or alcohol, or television, or not exercise, or not get enough sleep ... but we're not allowed to go back onto social media, and we're not allowed to relax the prayer requirements).

Solemnities (major feast days) are the same as Sundays. More often than not the Annunciation and St. Joseph's Day will be during Lent. St. Patrick's Day is a solemnity in Ireland but not in most other countries. Birthdays I guess it's up to the individual. I have a birthday which is sometimes in Lent and sometimes not; I'm glad it's not this year!

Eastern Catholics and Orthodox are different. There what you give up on which days is fixed, all that varies is how strictly you observe it.

Hate it if you like but nobody cares. Pancake day here.

The nuns never told us any of that. It was just give up for lent.

It sounds like you do a lot over lent. Good for you. I do think occasional self discipline like that is generally good for us regardless of any religious beliefs.

The eastern/orthodox sounds fascinating. I'm off to Google what you give up on what day. I guess they need to be careful not to get their data mixed up😁

My mum didn't even let me have Paddy's Day OR my birthday off.

We did keep it simple though - many's a year we just gave up salt on our dinner.

Yeah, we'd often give up something we didn't like. I regularly gave up sugar in my tea, despite not actually drinking tea.

The programme that I do allows us to relax one discipline on Sundays (e.g. we could have pudding, or alcohol, or television, or not exercise, or not get enough sleep ... but we're not allowed to go back onto social media, and we're not allowed to relax the prayer

Blimy! sounds like prison or even worse an English state secondary school!

Have skipped a bunch of pages but I like the version in a bunch of Midwest/Rust Belt cities -- pazcki day! (Polish style doughnuts, with fillings)

Reporting back on the eastern/orthodox rules.

Nothing is eaten until sundown and then the food is not exactly feast like. No meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, wine or oil.

However, there are exceptions. Wine and oil are permitted on Saturdays, Sundays, and a few feast days, and fish is permitted on palm Sunday as well as the annunciation when it falls before Palm Sunday, and, best of all, caviar is permitted on Lazarus Saturday. Meat and dairy are prohibited entirely until the fast is broken on Easter.

No sex either during lent.

I remember my daughter one year giving up chocolate biscuits. She still ate chocolate and biscuits, just not biscuits that came pre-packaged with chocolate on/in them. She sometimes ate actual pieces of chocolate as a topping on plain biscuits, which she would never do outside of Lent. I felt that was slightly taking the metaphorical biscuit. 😅

The nuns didn't tell us about Sundays either when we were young. Since it's personal devotion and not official theology, it's hard to find historical information for how/when the Church's official stance on it changed. I still don't know if the teaching developped between my childhood and now, or if it was always Sundays off but no one ever spoke about it, or if it had long been the practice in some other places in the world, and more travel and globalisation meant it eventually reached us.

I've never heard it called Pancake Tuesday (but I'm in England) Always Pancake day/Shrove Tuesday. It can be both at the same time. My DD goes to a RC school and they do pancake tossing in the Nun's garden!

True. Because all old Catholic churches or their sites became C of I post Reformation. Catholic churches tend to date from the mid 1800s onwards. Often big and not very pretty. We are a mostly Catholic country yet there is no official Catholic cathedral in Dublin or Cork.

My Orthodox friend always has a Lenten birthday. You can imagine how delicious the cake is made without dairy products, oil, or eggs!

It's much easier if you live in a majority-Orthodox country. In Greece, for example, you can buy a whole range of compliant foods in average supermarkets, they're in the 'fasting' aisle! It's brilliant for people with lactose intolerance and so on. And they've developped a load of tasty vegetable dishes made without dairy or oil. Because they don't only fast during Lent, there are three other fasts in the year and then twice weekly for the rest of the year.

The no food until sunset thing is not widely observed, that's just for the real hardcore enthusiasts. A couple of levels below that is no main meal before midday, which is much easier. The general expectation, even if you only do the basic level, is to eat less than usual at every meal.

No sex during Lent was traditional in western Catholicism too. We leave it up to the couple to decide for themselves now, but I know some still observe it.

The major difference is that it's voluntary! We choose to sign up to the programme as individuals, and then meet up regularly with other women doing it. Only a minority of people in the parish do it, and there's no judgement on those who do or don't, or what anyone else chooses to give up/do. I like having a structure and a challenge. Otherwise, I know myself, I would try to cheat - I'd keep to the letter of the rules and not the spirit. I find it helpful to have some accountability.

Plus, it makes the chocolate blow out on Easter Sunday a) really special and b) not a guilty pleasure. You can tell a good Catholic, because any weight they lose from fasting in Lent will be straight back on by the end of Easter week!

I’m Scottish and ‘Pancake Tuesday’ sounds completely wrong - I’ve never heard anyone call it that.

I have only heard it called Pancake Day.

Our local CoI church is a beautiful building dating back to the 14th century. It was obviously Catholic before the plantations when it was seized and converted.

Your poor friend @Fink .

Although the thread has moved on a bit since this:

High church and low church describe both liturgical style and theology. The former is obviously easier to spot because it's what you see as soon as you visit the church. High church is closest to traditional Catholicism - incense, bells, organ music, vestments, statues, that kind of thing. Low church is plain and unadorned. It's a whole spectrum in between. Going alongside it, high church theology is closest to Catholic (on things like grace, salvation, intercession) and low church is closest to Calvinist (hardline Protestant). As a rough correlation ( this is only in the UK, it's very different in African churches for example), within the Church of England, high church tend to be more socially liberal, and low church more socially conservative. That's not a hard and fast rule. The whole thing doesn't map at all onto different styles of worship within the Catholic Church, where the relationship between theology and liberalism and liturgical preference configures very differently.

Bananas feature heavily! And at least they can have sugar and salt without restriction. It's still not anyone's idea of a birthday blow out extravaganza though!

No, it isn't! Every day is children's day - that's what my dad used to say when we asked asked why mothers/fathers day but not children's day!

Oh my goodness, yes! Had completely forgotten that!

So the lads tieing up the children's swings in the playground would be low church. Wee frees and the like.

Shroving :
Now repeat after me : Bless me father, for I have sinned, it has been 23 pancakes since my last confession……..and 19 of those had cream and maple syrup on!

Ten minutes on MN on the day in question will show you that not even mother's day is mother's day.

High church and low church is used most often in relation to Anglicans only, but yes, in the broader sense of the term, Wee Frees would be very low church, as would all Presbyterians.