abstinence
The practice of not eating certain foods: see also ASCETICISM; CELIBACY. As a Christian technical term it is distinguished from fasting (eating little or nothing).
ash
1 The mineral content of a product that remains after complete combustion, which consists mainly of minerals in oxidized form. See also fly ash.2 Volcanic dust that erupts from a volcano, and either ...
ash
A tree, from whose wood spear-shafts were traditionally made, which has given its name to an Old English runic letter, , so named from the word of which it was the first letter.
Ashbourne Royal Shrovetide Football
One of the few surviving street football games takes place at Shrovetide in Ashbourne, Derbyshire. The first known mention of the Ashbourne game is in 1683, by Charles Cotton in his Burlesque on the ...
Black Friday
13 January 1939,was a day of catastrophic bushfires in Victoria and one of Australia's worst natural disasters. Fires had burned since December 1938, intensified by severe drought and high ...
Bushfires
Have been part of the Australian environment for millions of years, whether sparked by lightning strikes or by human action. The use of fire by Aborigines to assist their hunting ...
carnival
A period of public revelry at a regular time each year, as during the week before Lent in Roman Catholic countries, involving processions, music, dancing, and the use of masquerade. Recorded from the ...
Commination
The service drawn up by the compilers of the BCP for use on Ash Wednesday and other days appointed by the ordinary. It consists of an exhortation (in the course of which the Curses against various ...
Ember Days
Four groups each of three days, namely the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after St Lucy (13 Dec.), the first Sunday in Lent, Whitsunday, and Holy Cross Day (14 Sept.) respectively, which have been ...
Fetter Donnerstag
(Ger., ‘Fat-Thursday’).The Thursday preceding Ash Wednesday, traditionally observed, like the following Monday and (Shrove) Tuesday, as a day of feasting. (Fr. jeudi gras.)
Lent
In the west, the 40-day period of fasting before Easter, beginning with Ash Wednesday. (Sundays are not counted.) Each day has its own proper prayers, lessons, and chants. Penitential features ...
Memoriale Rituum
An obsolete liturgical book containing rites for Candlemas, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, and the last three days of Holy Week in the shortened form previously used in smaller RC parish churches.
Paenitemini
(1966). An Apostolic Constitution which revised the rules of penitential observance in the RC Church. It reduced the number of days of fasting and empowered episcopal conferences to substitute for ...
Quadragesima
The forty days of Lent. The name comes from ecclesiastical Latin, ultimately from Latin quadraginta ‘forty’.Quadragesima Sunday the first Sunday in Lent.
Quinquagesima
In modern usage, the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. The name was dropped in the RC Church in 1969 and later in some modern Anglican liturgies.
Shrove Tuesday
The day immediately before Ash Wednesday, so named from the ‘shriving’, i.e. confession and absolution, of the faithful on that day.
tempus clausum
(Lat., ‘closed time’). The seasons in the Christian year in which, because of their solemn or penitential character, marriages might not normally be celebrated with solemnity or at all. The periods ...
year, liturgical
In the W. Church the Christian year is based on the week and on the festivals of Easter and Christmas. It begins with the first Sunday in Advent. Sundays have traditionally been numbered through ...
