What is the Meaning Behind Shrove Tuesday?

If you’ve ever thrown a party, cooked dinner for your family, or even woken up to an alarm clock, you already know that the perceived “beginning” of something actually starts much earlier. Imagine arriving at a party that starts at 7 pm, and finding your host just getting started with their dust rag or decorations; picture telling your family that dinner will be at 6 pm, and as they gather at the table, you are just opening the recipe book. Try waking up at a prescribed time to an alarm clock that has not been set the night before. We are forever anticipating and preparing for what is to come, and when that preparation is neglected, we can have no assurance of a fruitful outcome.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. Will it find us ready, or just waking up to its arrival? How are we to prepare for a season of preparation?

Shrove Tuesday is a centuries-old response to this question, and it gives a simple answer: Pancakes and Penance.

“Shrove” is the past-tense verb of  Old English’s “shrive”, meaning “to administer the sacrament of reconciliation to”, or “to free from guilt,” Merriam-Webster.com. For over 1,000 years, this practice has been especially encouraged before entering into the Lenten fast. The faithful desired to arrive at Lent with a clean heart, not simply arrive at it by the end. Shrove Tuesday intentionally uses the day before Ash Wednesday as a time to confess and receive absolution for the sins that we want to leave behind as we spend our 40 days in the desert

Shrove Tuesday does not just imply another day in the confessional, however. In the early 7th century, Pope Gregory I had solidified the terms of the Lenten fast, directing Christians to abstain from meat and dairy for the 46 days leading up to Easter. This ensured 40 days of fasting (leaving Sundays as feast days), an echo to the holy fasts of Moses, Elijah, and eventually Jesus Himself. In order to adhere to this fast without waste or temptation, households would use up their stores of animal products.

In 1445 England, this practice of using up food became famously centered on the pancake - a relatively new creation, but one that easily used up eggs, milk, butter, and meat fats, making it the perfect recipe for Shrove Day. It is said that on Shrove Day of that year, a woman was busily making her pancakes when she heard the bells in Olney, Buckinghamshire, ringing to announce the shrove gathering. She rushed off to the church with her pancake pan still in hand, beginning a tradition of “pancake races” that are still held in the UK and Ireland, with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Hence, Shrove Tuesday became a day of pancakes and penance. We see this reflected in similar celebrations like Mardi Gras (the French equivalent to Shrove Tuesday, translated as “at Tuesday”) and Carnival in many Catholic cities. But the lesser-known Shrove Tuesday carries the true meaning of the day more carefully, both in its title and execution. Whereas the day before Ash Wednesday can easily become a day of indulgence and excess - a last-chance grab at our desires before a time of sacrifice sets in - Shrove Tuesday invites us to feast with the goal of abstaining, and to confess with the goal of atonement.

How do we prepare ourselves for a season of preparation? By clearing out what will no longer serve us if we are serving Him. We make the proverbial pancake out of whatever it is that convinces us we can rely on what we have rather than what God provides. We shed our sins through shriving. And we emerge as an emptier version of ourselves, to be a fuller reflection of God.

While it is accurate to refer to our “Lenten journey”, as it is an ever-evolving and personal one, it is worth also recognizing that Lent is its own destination. Jesus did not enter the desert on his way to another location. He went into the desert because he was called to the desert. Yes, we have flipped to the end of the story and know the glory that lies beyond Lent, but the invitation to sit with him in the desert is a crucial part of recognizing Him when He rises.