Sunday, February 15, 2009



WELL its time to prepare again for LENT !

I love the traditions, and keeping them alive for the kids is very important. This year on holy week Izabel will help with Easter sweet bread for the 1st time , I am so excited to teach her. we will head out today to church and to collect all the prayers and materials needed for the coming weeks. NEXT WEEK ..............MARDI GRAS!!! and then Ash wednesday services.


Mardi Gras or Carnival
Carnival, which comes from a Latin phrase meaning "removal of meat," is the three day period preceding the beginning of Lent, the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday immediately before Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of the Lenten Season (some traditions count Carnival as the entire period of time between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday). The three days before Ash Wednesday are also known as Shrovetide ("shrove" is an Old English word meaning "to repent"). The Tuesday just before Ash Wednesday is called Shrove Tuesday, or is more popularly known by the French term Mardi Gras, meaning "Fat Tuesday," contrasting to the fasting during Lent. The entire three day period has now come to be known in many areas as Mardi Gras.

Carnival or Mardi Gras is usually a period of celebration, originally a festival before the fasting during the season of Lent. Now it is celebrated in many places with parades, costumes, dancing, and music. especially the Portuguese culture , the French culture of Louisiana, and some of the Caribbean cultures such as Trinidad, Many churches now observe Mardi Gras with a church pancake breakfast or other church meal, eating together as a community before the symbolic fasting of Lent begins.