St. Luke’s offers Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper, Ash Wednesday service

The public is invited to attend a Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 21 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 313 Main St. in Chester.

The menu will consist of pancakes, real maple syrup, sausage, fruit salad and beverages, which are traditionally prepared by men of the parish.

All are invited and donations are welcome. The outdoor entrance to Willard Hall is down the wooden stairway toward the rear of the church building.

Shrove Tuesday is also known as Carnival, Pancake Day in England and Fat Tuesday (literally “Mardi Gras” in French). Whatever its name, it is the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent, when Christians participate in 40 days of fasting, penance and praying in preparation for Easter.

Starting around A.D. 600, Pope St. Gregory prohibited Christians from eating meat and animal products, such as eggs and fats, during Lent. St. Augustine of Canterbury imposed the same fasting rules in England. Pancakes were an easy way to use up those ingredients.

An Ash Wednesday service will take place downstairs in Willard Hall at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 22.  The service will offer the Ash Wednesday liturgy with Holy Eucharist, hymns and an optional imposition of ashes. Ashes offered are signs of one’s mortality and, thus, the giving up of barriers and controls that might prevent the realization of God’s spirit working within oneself.

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