Bulletins

January 11, 2015

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Epiphany ushering in the last days of Christmastide already points to another great occasion: Shrovetide even though Shrovetide refers to the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, so named because of the old English word “shrive,” meaning “to confess,” and the tradition of going to Confession in the days before Lent started.

The celebration of Epiphany traditionally includes the baking of Three Kings Cake. Fisheaters has the recipe.

Three Kings Cake usually contains hidden inside a little plastic Baby Jesus. The lucky reveler whose piece of cake includes the Divine Infant used to be expected to throw the next party. Nowadays said finder of the Christ Child can only be expected to sue the living daylights out of the reckless baker who left a choking hazard in the dough. Tort reform, where are you?

When you think about it, it does seem an unusually thing to do with a sacred object. In Istanbul the celebration of Epiphany occasions the annual swimming race in the Golden Horn of the Bosphorus strait which ensues after the Greek Orthodox Partriarch Bartholomew, having celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Church and then processed to the Fener dock, hurls a wooden cross into the cold water which is then chased down by eager members of the faithful who are waiting in a boat just offshore. Kudos to this year’s winner, Todor Pasev from Bulgaria. He was awarded a chain with a gold cross. I digress.

If you had always associated our cakey ritual with Mardi Gras you are on the cusp of a great lower case “e” epiphany… Epiphany is the beginning of the Mardi Gras season!

Our parish Mardi Gras party will take place on the evening of Saturday, February 7 in the gymnasium and it is going to be bigger than ever. BB Holoubek’s famous Gumbo will be paired with my soon-to-be-famous Cochon de Lait! We will need your help. So as to be able to make enough gumbo we are going to ask you to make the Red Beans. It might not sound so exciting unless you tried BB’s red beans last year. Who knew it was a meat dish?!

So mark your calendar and tell your neighbors. It is already less than a month away.

God bless you. Happy Mardi Gras!

Fr. Christopher J. Pollard