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Shrove
Tuesday is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of
Lent. This year it takes place on February 8th.
Shrove
Tuesday is a day of penitence, a time to clean the soul before Lent
and a day of celebration as the last chance to feast before Lent
begins.
The
English custom of eating pancakes was probably suggested by the
need of using up the eggs and fat which were, originally at least,
prohibited articles of diet during the forty days of Lent.
The
church tradition of having pancake suppers and the secular tradition
of just plain partying also derives from the practice of feasting
before the fast.
The
name 'shrove' is rumoured to derive from the word 'shrive' or confess
and the day gets its name from the ritual of 'shriving' that Christians
used to undergo in the past.
In
shriving a person confesses their sins and receives absolution for
them. When a person receives absolution for their sins, they are
forgiven for them and released from the guilt and pain that they
have caused them.
In
the Catholic or Orthodox context, the absolution is "pronounced"
by a priest and the
tradition is very old.
Over
1000 years ago a monk wrote in the Anglo-Saxon Ecclesiastical Institutes:
"In the week immediately before Lent everyone shall go to his confessor
and confess his deeds and the confessor shall so shrive him".
Traditionally
there were many foods that observant Christians would not eat during
Lent: foods such as meat and fish, fats, eggs, and milky foods.
So
that no food was wasted, families would have a feast on the shriving
Tuesday, and eat up all the foods that wouldn't last the 40 days
of Lent without going off.
The
need to eat up the fats gave rise to the French name Mardi Gras;
meaning Fat Tuesday.
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Most
people think of Shrove Tuesday simply as Pancake day but there's more
to the day than just pigging out on pancakes! 
