Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday

This year Shrove Tuesday was on Tuesday 21 February. Here at St Andrew’s the students celebrated the day by eating pancakes and watching the Pancake Tossing Relay on the school oval. A lot of students asked why we eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.

Shrove Tuesday is the day before Lent starts on Ash Wednesday. The name Shrove comes from the old middle English word 'Shriven' meaning to go to confession to say sorry for the wrong things you've done. Lent always starts on a Wednesday, so people went to confessions on the day before. This became known as Shriven Tuesday and then Shrove Tuesday.

The other name for this day, Pancake Day, comes from the old English custom of using up all the fattening ingredients in the house before Lent, so that people were ready to fast during Lent. The fattening ingredients that most people had in their houses in those days were eggs and milk. A very simple recipe to use up these ingredients was to combine them with some flour and make pancakes!
The ingredients for pancakes can be seen to symbolise four points of significance at this time of year:
Eggs ~ Creation
Flour ~ The staff of life
Salt ~ Wholesomeness
Milk ~ Purity

On Wednesday 22 February, Christians around the world marked Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent and the forty days before Easter Sunday (not including the Sundays!).

Here at St Andrew’s, we acknowledged this important date in the Church calendar by having a special Ash Wednesday Assembly for students in Years 3-6.

As part of the Lenten journey, students from ELC to Year 6 took a Kindness Pledge. During Lent Christians spend extra time examining their lives and try to make changes that bring them closer to God and each other. The Kindness Pledge was a way for students to think about how they can show kindness at school, home and in our community.

On Ash Wednesday students were also invited to wear ‘a touch of purple’ to school. Why purple? In Church we have four liturgical colours for the different seasons in the Church year. Purple is the colour for Lent, so students wore a touch of purple to acknowledge and remember this special season we are in.

Wishing you a holy and prayerful Lenten season.

The Rev’d Rachel Chapman
Chaplain