Lent

And we all, you know, if you're in ministry, you will experience seasons that are fuller than others.

When I was in pastoral ministry, my body, you know, would ramp up at Advent into Christmas, you know, and then back again at Lent into Easter.

And there are seasons where you feel a little bit more revved up and seasons where you can sort of step back.

But if you can increase this window of tolerance, and this takes some practice, this takes some stretching, it's like stretching new muscles of the nervous system, what ends up happening is that your tank's not perpetually unempty.

Yes, I decided to cook Somi food.

And Somi food is the food that's made for the Lent, the Christian fasting.

So to be honest, when I started Sacred Cuisine, that wasn't my agenda.

I wanted to cook food and sell food.

And when I was asking around, nobody came with an answer.

And then I got to know the story of falafel.

And when I got the story, falafel, it was created by the Coptic of Egypt because of the Lent.

And I was like, what? This dish that we eat every day was created because of the Lent, the Christian fasting.

And I was able to sell that.

I was able to keep the price low, especially during times where maybe during Lent.

And, you know, be able to sell that to the to the customer.

And they appreciated not paying an exorbitant price because fish is expensive.

if they have been good during the year she fills their stockings with toys if naughty they are rewarded with a mere handful of toys and a tiny birch broom it naturally follows that befana is dreaded rather than loved in florentine nurseries for the children are threatened with her displeasure whenever they are disobedient or troublesome and as it is supposed the noise of trumpets and bells will frighten her away the children go to the numerous street stalls which are erected everywhere between christmas and epiphany and spend their soldi on the whistles horns and tiny clay bells which are to be found there and return home happy feeling that they can bid defiance to the black-faced bogey while their parents haunt the same stalls in search of cheap toys with which to fill the little stockings On St. Antonio's Day, January 17, the cabmen send little flat loaves of bread, pane de San Antonio, to their patrons and patronesses, and some of them take their horses to church to be blessed.

from christmas to shrove tuesday is a time of festivity when rich and poor alike indulge in gaieties of various kinds but when lent begins all entertainment stop and the only recreation for the next six weeks is on sundays at the nut fairs these fairs are quite a feature of the penitential season and in bygone years were inaugurated by a fair held early on ash-wednesday morning under the loggia of s paulino in the piazza s maria novella at which all kinds of dried fruits and cereals were sold the idea being that on that morning thrifty housewives were eager to lay in a stock of figs olives raisins c to vary the lenten fare but this fair has been discontinued and such purchases must be made in ordinary shops or at the nut fairs which are held on sundays at different gates of the city these nut fairs form a great meeting place for the members of the artisan classes and the peasants from the surrounding districts so much so that they are regarded as affording the most favourable opportunities which the lads and lasses have of commencing their courtships and bringing them to a happy conclusion the first three fairs which are known respectively as the fiere dei curiosi the fair of the curious the fiere dei furiosi the fair of the furious and the fiere dei fnamorati the fair of the lovers are held in the piazza san gallo just beside the ancient gateway of that name the fourth fair which falls on mid-lent sunday has no special appellation and is held at the porta del prato the fifth fair the fiere dei contratti takes place at the porta romana and is the most important of all as any marriages which have been arranged are announced there the marriage contracts settled and congratulations received the sixth fair is known as the fair of the rejected the idea being perhaps that those who have not had the good fortune to appear under the guise of betrothed persons on the previous sunday may at this last festal gathering have another chance it is held at the porto san at all these fairs nuts and almonds are the principal commodities offered for sale on the gaily draped stalls but other things are sold as well dried fruits and little cakes which owing to the lenten feafon are baked entirely without butter chief among those are maritozzi or roman buns cheap brown biscuits called quaresimali and another variety of biscuits berighidisi which are strongly flavoured with aniseed and which are baked on the spot in little portable ovens In mid-Lent comes the day of Scala, when children with clever fingers cut little ladders out of cardboard or soft perforated paper, then run out into the streets to play pranks on unwary passers-by.

They carefully whiten one side of a cardboard ladder with chalk, then stamp its impress on the black coat of some respectable citizen and pin a fluttering paper ladder to a lady's skirt.

then they dart off with a mocking cry la la you've got it you've got it only to repeat the trick at the corner of the next street from the point of view of ecclesiastical customs holy week and easter are the most interesting of all the year to spend in florence a great many of these customs prevail in other parts of italy as they are the ordinary ceremonies connected with the ritual of the roman church but one the scoppio del caro which takes place on easter even is unique being purely local and people from all parts of the world try if they are anywhere in the neighbourhood to be in florence on that day in order to witness it preparations for the easter festival begin in passion week or even in the week preceding it for if at that time we are visiting any house in the city large or small rich or poor we would be liable to stumble on a spring cleaning the reason for this being not so much the season of the year as the fact that in passion week every parish priest visits not only every house in his parish but every room in that house blessing it and sprinkling it with holy water this is known as the blessing of the houses and naturally every housewife wishes to have her domestic domain in apple-pie order for the occasion towards the end of passion week we see numbers of barocci entering the town laden not with their usual load of wine and flagons but with branches of silvery olives these together with quantities of palms are taken into the duomo or the church of the santissima annunziata in the piazza of that name and piled up in front of the altar on palm sunday morning before mass they are blessed by the celebrating priest and distributed to the other clergy and to the members of the congregation when this part of the service is over an imposing procession takes place all the clergy with olive branches in their hands rise from their seats in the choir and move slowly down the church while the accounts of our lord's entry into jerusalem from the various gospels are sung by the choir the procession does not halt at the west door but proceeds straight out of church into the porch and the door is closed behind it then the choir sing the palm sunday hymn all glory lord and honour while the clergy reply with the refrain outside when the hymn is finished the doors are once more opened and the gorgeously vested priests move slowly back to their places of course there are a great many more palms and olives blessed than are distributed in church and those that are over are sold on the steps for every one likes to have an olive benedetto stuck up in his house or barn or stable to protect it from evil influences throughout the coming year another and more mundane preparation is to be found in the fiera di cavalli e bovini or cattle show which is held in the markets outside the barrier of s jacopo on the wednesday in holy week when cattle which have been fattened for the easter feast just as they are fattened for christmas in england are exposed for sale on the afternoon of that day the first of the solemn services of the passion is held this is the matutino delle tenebre and it consists of the matins and lauds proper to maundy thursday which are said on the previous day and are spoken of as the matins of darkness because of the tradition that the early christians were in the habit of holding offices of prayer in the catacombs at dead of night this service lasts for three hours and is most impressive during the singing of the benedictus the altar lights are extinguished one by one until only one which represents christ remains and that is removed from the altar and hidden behind it in order to typify our lord's death and burial when in this way the church has been rendered utterly dark and gloomy the clergy and congregation beat the floor with slender rods of willow which can be bought outside thus producing the noise known as the strepitacula which is supposed to represent the upheaval of natural forces at the final hour of the crucifixion

Then we've got Oktoberfest in Germany, which is a massive drinking festival.

And in a few months, we have Carnival, which is another licensed loss of control before the abstemiousness of Lent.

So it's like the Catholic Church invented dry January then.

That is another excellent observation, Lily.

Personally, it's a tool that I love using in my own prayer life, but it's also something that I've seen a lot of people use in different ways.

We adapted it for Lent.

We're going to talk about, for Global Trellis, using it as a tool for Advent this year with live prayer.

And I've seen people even give it to their supporters and ask their supporters to go through it as a way of praying for them in the country that they are serving and getting to know their context better.

As it turns out, they keep it around because the fillet of fish is actually intended to be eaten by a very specific type of customer, people who abstain from eating non-seafood meat for various reasons.

According to McDonald's executives, approximately 23% of the Filet-O-Fish sandwiches sold by the chain each year are sold during Lent.

While the exact rules vary somewhat from region to region, in general Catholics traditionally abstain from eating most meats on Fridays and Saturdays during this period.

In some regions, the requirement is even that members of the Church avoid non-seafood meat on every single Friday of the year.

And we all, you know, if you're in ministry, you will experience seasons that are fuller than others.

When I was in pastoral ministry, my body, you know, would ramp up at Advent into Christmas, you know, and then back again at Lent into Easter.

And there are seasons where you feel a little bit more revved up and seasons where you can sort of step back.

But if you can increase this window of tolerance, and this takes some practice, this takes some stretching, it's like stretching new muscles of the nervous system, what ends up happening is that your tank's not perpetually unempty.

Bring in

a Lenten mission speaker and you just know this is going to be a real dud.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yep.