Shrove Tuesday: Before Lent Begins
Henri Lehmann - Le Confessionnal (The Confessional) (1872)
Source https://www.tuttartpitturasculturapoesiamusica.com/2019/05/Henri-Lehmann.html
Today is both the feast day of St. David of Wales (a patron saint of poets, amongst other things) and Shrove Tuesday. Some of you may know today by its French name, Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. These twin aspects of today really seem to highlight the paradox of the Catholic faith. On the one hand, today is a day of decadence; of eating up all your sugar, oils, flour; of, to some extent, getting all your sinning out of the way before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. On the other hand, today is a day of confession, of preparing our bodies and souls for the time of fasting that is to begin tomorrow. We fast in order to feast, but we still have to fast, to make sacrifices to God in order to be made into little Christs.
In order to highlight today as both Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras and as the Feast of St. David, I am sharing with you two poems. The first appears in my book, The Green Man, and is dedicated to, and about, my namesake. The second is one I wrote today, trying to get at the merriness of today, but also of our impending death as we prepare for the priest to tell us, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. I hope these words of mine will help you prepare for Lent, remember that feasting is at the heart of faith, and will help you grow closer to Christ.
“Shrove Tuesday”
So have your fun, for tomorrow we will die,
Eat your fill of cakes and drink your wine,
Consume the goods of earth, consume and dine,
Be merry friend! For tomorrow we will die.
The rain may come, and tomorrow we will die,
But I will seek the stars that rise and shine
And dance with them their spinning dance so fine,
For tomorrow, tomorrow we will die.
And yet my soul calls shrive me, shrive me, shrive me,
I cannot simply dance unto my death.
Oh I’ll be merry, and yet I must confess
The things that only your kind eye can see.
Breathe into me the life-in-death of breath
So if I say forgive me, you will say yes.
"St. David"
Dewi o Cymru, poetry's patron,
We anglicized your name and called you David.
You spread in Wales the knowledge of salvation,
Yet you cared for creatures too, you were not craven,
Thinking all things existed just for our use.
You gave us bread and beer and cheese to feed
The poor, so God's creatures would not be abused.
You preached the Truth and set the sinners free.
And now, my namesake, I ask you for your prayers.
You and I are poets like the king
Who came before us. Please help me sing new airs
And with beloved David reach out and bring
Me to new heights that I may see
Through eyes like yours, may see reality.
