The Burying of the " Alleluia" and entering Gesimatide

    
   With the Feast of  Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (aka Candlemas) last Sunday, Christmas has definitively come to an end, and we have sung our last “Alleluia" until Easter. You can see their “burial” spot off to the side of the patio as you enter the Church. The grocery stores now remind us that (the secular/pagan versions of) St. Valentine’s and St. Patrick’s Day are upon us. By the time St. Patrick’s Day  comes around this year, the Catholic Church will be well into Lent. Then, in turn, the wonderful season of Easter with its feasting and joy in the Resurrection of Our Lord will be upon us. It is a busy four months, but thankfully, the Church, in her wisdom, has given us a pause these next three weeks — before Lent, we enter into Gesimatide.
    Due to the busyness of these months, it’s easy to welcome this respite and let Gesimatide slip by without appreciation. Yet the season — first mentioned in a homily by St. Gregory the Great in the late 600s — is rich with meaning and purpose. So what does Gesimatide mean?
   The English equivalent to Gesimatide is the word “Shrovetide".  Shrovetide refers to the week before Lent. In the "Ecclesiastical Institutes," written by Theodulphus and translated by Abt. Aelfric c. 1000, “Shrovetide" was recorded as: "In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him as he then may hear by his deeds what he is to do in the way of penance." 
You may have also heard this time referred to as Carnival, which is derived from the Latin words carnem levare, “to take away the flesh.”
     Gesimatide is, then, a preparation for preparation! As humans, we cannot move from one thing to the next without transition. In the wisdom of the Church, we are given time in Lent to prepare for Easter, but we are also given time to prepare for being purposeful about preparation! We Humans do not understand immediately, but learn step by step. We read books page by page, watch movies scene by scene, Netflix series, episode by episode, etc., and we experience our lives day by day, season by season. The Church leads us through this narrative of Redemption each year through the liturgical calendar. Therefore, these few weeks are set aside for us to prayerfully consider how to approach our Lent this year -- to question how we will receive our penance and renew our faith. 
    Now is, for many traditional Catholics, the time decide how to include fasting, or abstaining, in your upcoming Lenten discipline, rather than waiting until the evening of Shrove Tuesday to prepare, and  to perhaps remove temptations from your home (pausing the Streaming Service for 40 days, say, or locking up the liquor cabinet). By preparing in Gesimatide, we will be ready to receive ashes on February 14th. 
     This time is truly a pre-Lenten season — the countdown to Easter has begun!  
 
 
Faithfully, Your Friend and Pastor,
 
Fr. Christopher C. Stainbrook