Anyone Giving Up – or Taking Up – Anything for Lent?

Today, Tuesday 16 February, is Pancake Day – Shrove Tuesday – and tomorrow Lent begins.

The custom is that pancakes are made on Shrove Tuesday to use up all the rich food in the house because Lent is traditionally a period of fast.

Nowadays people may still make pancakes but few fast in the original sense. Many people do, however, give up a luxury of some sort – such as chocolate, or alcohol.

This year some church leaders including the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Liverpool, are suggesting  people take part in a ‘Carbon Fast’ and give up using iPods, and eat by candlelight to help reduce carbon emissions for the benefit of the planet.

The Bishop of London says: "It's the poorest people in developing countries, who have done the least to cause climate change, being hit hardest by its devastating consequences. It is all of our responsibility to help reverse this injustice. The Carbon Fast's simple daily actions are not only fun, but an opportunity to demonstrate the love of God in a practical way while reducing your carbon emissions, and everyone can take part."

Last year in Italy the Archbishop of Modena wanted young Catholics to give up text messaging, social networking, and computer games for Lent.

But many people regard taking up a good action as a better way to observe Lent, an approach promoted by the Church of England who in recent years have suggested people get together to do ‘something generous’ as part of its ‘Love Life Live Lent’ campaign.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and is the 6 ½ week period before Easter, which Christians traditionally spend as a time of penance and reflection.

Easter is a movable date. It falls between 22 March and 25 April and is the first Sunday following the full moon after 21 March. Therefore Ash Wednesday is also a movable date, falling 46 days before Easter (40 days not counting Sundays, the same number of days Jesus spent in the Wilderness). This year Ash Wednesday is 17 February.

Ash Wednesday gets its name from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of the faithful as a sign of repentance.

Many people, whether church-goers or not, see Lent as an opportunity to exercise some self-restraint, particularly if it’s good for their health – rather like making those resolutions back on 31 December.

So if you’re giving up – or taking up –something for Lent, let Hedgeendpeople know how you get on!

Me – I’m still thinking, but the likelihood of my giving up my evening glass of wine is about the same as the young people of Modena giving up their text messaging, social networking and computer games.

If you’re looking for pancake recipes the BBC website has some tempting ones by Delia Smith, James Martin, Madhur Jaffrey and Cyrus Todiwala.

And if you’d like to attend church tomorrow St John’s Church in St John’s Road has a 10.00am service and a 7.30pm service for Ash Wednesday, both a Holy Communion with Ashing.

St Luke’s Church in St Luke’s Close has a special Ash Wednesday service at 7.00pm, which is also Communion and including imposition of Ashes.

The charity 'tearfund' has more information about the Carbon Fast.

Photo from Flickr, by archbaker.