Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Pancakes and sausage, then ashes


Well, we served pancakes and sausage to about 80 people (beyond ourselves --- including Girl Scouts) at St. Andrew's on Shrove Tuesday, raising $500 in free-will donations for the Ministry Center food bank. Not bad, we thought for a tiny parish in a small but busy town. So thanks to all who shared supper with us, each other and, indirectly, with those who struggle to make ends meet.


Somehow we'd managed to calculate how much would be needed, running short only on orange juice at the very end but ending with a dozen sausages to spare. The Scouts did well, too, at their cookie sales table in the narthex.


It's always a lot of fun to work with the Scouts, who meet in the parish hall on Tuesdays and other occasions, usually when we're not there. They actually make the whole thing possible by waiting tables while parishioners cook and wash dishes --- and they're very good workers.


We'll be back at 5:30 p.m. today for the Ash Wednesday liturgy, which includes imposition of ashes (in the form of a cross on foreheads) with the spoken admonition, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return" --- the formal commencement of Lent.

At some point during the day, I'll need to get the bulletins done for that service and head out to the church to change the altar frontal and other hangings from work-a-day liturgical green to somber purple. The ashes will be from dried fronds reserved last year on Palm Sunday, burned and mixed with a little holy water. Hopefully, someone remembered to do that.

And down at Russell, my friend who wrangles flowers on a weekly basis for the multiple altars at Sacred Heart will be waking with a sign of relief --- bare altars until Easter Sunday.


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