Fr Matthew Reese

You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he has commanded you. And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers.
—Deuteronomy 6: 17-18

Dear friends,

Today is Shrove Tuesday, and I will confess that before writing this, it had never once occurred to me to ask what on earth “a shrove” was. Or what it means “to shrive.” So, for this, I had to turn to the Oxford English Dictionary.

In the transitive form, to shrive is “to impose penance upon (a person); hence, to administer absolution to; to hear the confession of.”

In the passive form, to take shrift, means “to be confessed; to make one’s confession and receive absolution and penance.”

Hence another archaic phrase that we use all the time, but perhaps without knowing its full meaning: “short shrift.”

To shrive, of course, is related to many other words that have to do with writing. The Latin scrībere, to write, gets us to “inscribe,” “ascribe,” Bartleby, the Scrivener, and so on.

In Exodus, the Law is literally inscribed in stone. In Deuteronomy, particularly today’s lesson, we are reminded that the Law is also meant to be lived out. It is the definitional covenant.

God’s love, God’s word, God’s law, is inscribed in us. And in turn—as the wonderful exhortation from Psalm 29 goes—we “ascribe to the Lord the honor due his name.”

I think immediately of all the beautiful phrases in Scripture and in the Prayerbook about the Word being “written upon our hearts.”

The days immediately before Lent are often a period of celebration and feasting.

Think of Carnevale in Italy, or Mardi Gras (“Fat Tuesday”) in the Francophone world. But the English word for this day suggests the other side of the coin—preparation, penance, and most importantly forgiveness.

Many Christians will make their preparation today with private confessions—if that is your desire, the priests at Saint Philip’s will be on hand throughout the day.

But remember that however you prepare for Lent, in doing “what is right and good in the sight of the Lord,” we are always moving forward, towards that “good land” which is covenant with God.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Matthew