Tuesday, February 25th, @ 5:30PM

Gather family and friends for this wonderful tradition at Saint John’s Parish Hall, where devoted flippers have been serving delicious pancakes dripping in butter and maple syrup to the Episcopal congregation in Charlestown, MA, for too many years to even remember when they first learned the one handed flip. We’ve not begun our own traditional Pancake Race, YET, but we laugh, we sing, we have a rollicking good time, and we welcome you to join us! Please remember to bring last year’s palms to burn for Ash Wednesday, and if you would like to learn more about the community tradition of the Pancake Race, held elsewhere, and now an international sensation, please read on!

Celebrated the day before Ash Wednesday, Shrove Tuesday, also called, “Pancake Tuesday,” or “Pancake Day,” is the final day before the forty day period of Lent begins. This year it falls on February 25th.  Its name comes from the Germanic-Old English word, “shrive,” meaning to present oneself for absolution, and it is the last day of the liturgical season historically known as, Shrovetide.

Because it comes directly before Lent, a season of fasting and penitence, this was the day that Christians would go to be “shriven,” by their confessor.  In the Christian tradition, Shrove Tuesday is also known as, Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), Faschingsdienstag, Malasada Day, Sprengidagur, Martes de Carnaval, and Pancake Day! All these terms refer to the last hurrah of overdoing it before the Lenten fasting begins. Celebrating by eating pancakes uses up your supply of oil, eggs, milk, and sugar, which you may be giving up until Easter.

Many communities have a pancake festival or some kind of gathering to eat pancakes together before Lent. One of the oldest is in the village of Olney, England where an annual Pancake Race dates back five centuries! On Shrove Tuesday, women compete against each other in a 415-yard race in which they must carry a pancake in a skillet. The legend is that when the church bells rang for Shrove Tuesday service in the year 1445, a certain housewife was not finished grilling the cakes. Not wishing to ruin her pancakes, she ran to the church with pan in hand.

The Shrove Tuesday Pancake Race is now an international tradition with various rules, such as follow:

1.  Gentleman and gentlewoman behavior will be strictly observed at all times. 

2.  Administrators will especially be expected to be on their best behavior and to act as an example to all participants. 

3.  Frying pans must not be used as weapons or as a means of making unseemly gestures, whatever the depth of provocation or the nature of the person at the root of the provocation. 

4.  Any surplus eggs, flour or butter remaining from the earlier making of pancakes must not be propelled in the direction of other participants or spectators.

5.  The course is over 25 meters and, in that distance, pancakes must be tossed once to a minimum height of 30cm. 

6.  If a participant allows a pancake to fall, he or she must return to the starting line and begin again.

7.  Members from each team will run in relay and the pancake, frying pan, and apron must be exchanged intact before the next member of the team can proceed. 

8.  The organizers reserve the right to send off violent or unruly participants.

For more information about where we gathered this information, please follow the links, below:

https://episcopalchurch.org/library/article/pass-syrup-—-its-shrove-tuesday

https://www.pancakeday.net

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/23976/happy-pancake-day

Following the 10am worship service on this coming Sunday, February 9th, we will gather to review our 2019 achievements and milestones, thank our outgoing Wardens and Vestry members, and chart our course for 2020! 

Copies of the 2019 Annual Report will be distributed, the Parish budget will be presented, and new Wardens and Vestry members elected.  We will meet in the sanctuary following a brief time for coffee and refreshments.  Childcare will be provided.

The Annual Meeting is a very important part of our life together.  Please make every effort to be with us.

The Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple

A feast of our Lord, celebrated on Feb. 2, also known as Candlemas, and the Feast of the Purification, commemorates the presentation of Jesus and the purification of Mary in the Jerusalem Temple forty days after Jesus’ birth, in accordance with the requirements of Jewish law (Lv 12:2-8). The feast is celebrated about forty days after Christmas. According to the account of Lk 2:22-39, the presentation of Jesus was also the occasion of the meeting of Jesus with Simeon and Anna. Simeon’s prayer of blessing is the basis for the canticle Nunc dimittis (see, Book of Common Prayer, p. 120). Celebration of the feast dates from the fourth century in Jerusalem. It was introduced in Rome in the seventh century, where it included a procession with candles and the singing of the Nunc dimittis. The celebration came to include the lighting and blessing of candles which were carried in procession. This feast was known as “Candlemas.”

Nunc dimittis

A canticle based on the words of Simeon, who recognized the infant Jesus to be the Messiah at the Presentation of Jesus in the temple by Mary and Joseph (Lk 2:29-32). It had been revealed to Simeon by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Messiah. When Simeon saw the child Jesus he took him up in his arms, blessed God, and said, “Lord, you now have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised.” Simeon was peaceful and ready to face death because he had seen the long-expected Messiah. The canticle is also known as the Song of Simeon. The term Nunc dimittis is from the initial words of the Song of Simeon in Latin, which mean “now let depart.” The canticle is identified as the canticle for Evening Office by the Apostolic Constitutions of the late fourth century.

In the seventh century, Pope Sergius (d. 701) introduced in Rome a procession with candles and the singing of the Nunc dimittis to celebrate the Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple. The day came to be known as “Candlemas.” The Nunc dimittis became the canticle for use at Compline in the west. It was also used as the canticle following the second lesson at Evensong in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. It has appeared in this place in every subsequent Prayer Book except the 1789 Book of Common Prayer. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer uses the Nunc dimittis after the second lesson at Evening Prayer (p. 120) and near the conclusion of Compline (p. 135). At the Burial of the Dead, the Nunc dimittis may be used as an anthem as the body is borne from the church after the commendation. The Nunc dimittis also appears as Canticles 5 and 17 for optional use at Morning Prayer (pp. 51, 93). The Hymnal 1982 provides musical settings of the Nunc dimittis (S 196-S 200, S 254-S 260). The Hymnal 1982 Accompaniment Edition, Vol. 1 also provides musical settings of the Nunc dimittis (S 395, S 405).

Canticle

A canticle is a non-metrical song used in liturgical worship. Canticles are drawn from biblical texts other than the Psalter. The term is derived from the Latin canticulum, a “little song.” In practice, canticles are sung or said in worship. The Book of Common Prayer provides contemporary and traditional language canticles. Contemporary language canticles may be used in traditional language services and vice versa. Many canticles are traditionally known by the opening words (incipit) of the canticle in Latin versions of the Bible or service books, such as the Benedictus Dominus Deus (Canticle 16, Book of Common Prayer, p. 92). The Book of Common Prayer provides a Table of Canticles suggested for use at Morning and Evening Prayer (pp. 144-145). Canticles serve as responses to the readings at the services of the Daily Office. Canticles may also be used at the Burial of the Dead after the OT and NT readings, at the Holy Eucharist on certain occasions as an alternative to the psalm appointed, at the Easter Vigil after certain Old Testament readings in the liturgy of the word, in the Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families, and after the Bible reading in the Order for Evening.

Psalter

A publication in which the psalms are written in regular poetic meters and intended for singing to musical settings in stanzas. The earliest important metrical psalter in English is the “Old Version” or “Sternhold and Hopkins.” The first version of nineteen metrical psalms was published about 1547, followed by a complete version that was published in London in 1562. They were authorized for use before and after services and sermons. The Hymnal 1982 contains William Kethe’s version of Ps 100, “All people that on earth do dwell” from the 1562 edition (Hymns 377-378). The “Old Version” was used in England into the eighteenth century. It was generally replaced by the “New Version” of Nicholas Brady and Nahum Tate, which was first published in London in 1696. The Hymnal 1982 contains three texts in altered versions from this collection (Hymns 364, 658, 666). The “New Version” was used by English colonists in America before the Revolution and was bound with the first Book of Common Prayer for publication in 1789. The 1832 General Convention substituted selections from the psalms for the whole Psalter. Most of these were from the “New Version,” but sixteen were from other sources. The Book of Common Prayer allows use of metrical versions of the invitatory psalms and of the canticles after the readings at Morning and Evening Prayer (Book of Common Prayer, p. 141).

Learn More: https://episcopalchurch.org

The Her Way of Love Episcopal Church Community of Women follows The Way of Love as a rule of life. During the 79th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry encouraged Episcopalians to adopt the The Way of Love as a rule of life, through the seven practices of Turn, Learn, Pray, Worship, Bless, Go + Rest. The Her Way of Love mission is to provide a community of support for women seeking to cultivate an intentional life of prayer and action by committing themselves to The Way of Love. 

Learn more about The Way of Love here:  https://episcopalchurch.org/way-of-love  & Learn more about Her Way of Love here: https://www.herwayoflove.com

At Saint John’s, we’re inviting you to join an eight month journey in the “Her Way of Love Book Club.” Through memoirs, theology and poetry, we’ll enrich our spiritual lives and grow together.  Each month of book club we will read a book that is paired with one of the practices. We are continuing on with the third book in the month of March, and we will be reading, “Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again,” by Rachel Held Evans.

Join Here:https://www.herwayoflove.com/bookclub

Please know that you might choose to read any one or all of the eight books on the reading list at any time, during the next eight months, and that you may choose reading at your own pace, contributing at your own pace, and reflecting at your own pace. This book club is intended to be a gentle and nurturing tool that brings, “Joy to Your Journey,” with no deadlines, no distress, and especially, no dread. 

With enough interest in a particular book or books, we’ll schedule one or more gatherings with refreshments in Saint John’s garden, for questions and discussion, so watch for more announcements with information in spring and summer of 2020, as fair weather follows!