The palms from the previous Palm Sunday in 2018 are burned in preparation to make ashes for Ash Wednesday.
SAN MATEO, Rizal – Come take part in this service of reflection and preparation for Lent as we burn last year’s Palm Sunday leaves to use for this year’s Ash Wednesday ashes.
If you still have the palm fronds you received last year, please bring them! A brief ceremony of burning of palm fronds will be done during our Mass this Shrove Tuesday, March 5, 2019.
Shrove is the past tense of the word shrive, which means to hear a confession, and absolve from sin. In the Middle Ages, especially in Northern Europe and England, it became the custom to confess one’s sins on the day before Lent began to enter the penitential season in the right spirit. Lent, the penitential period before Easter, has been a time of fasting and abstinence for many Christians. Some choose to abstain from all meat and items that came from animals, including butter, eggs, cheese, and fat. That is why Shrove Tuesday became known as Mardi Gras, the French term for Fat Tuesday. Over time, Mardi Gras extended from a single day to the entire period of Shrovetide, the days from the last Sunday before Lent through Shrove Tuesday.
