With the smudges from Ash Wednesday either washed off or fading away (depending on your hygiene), the Lenten season is in full swing. Many students and faculty have made their pledges to their friends, God or themselves to avoid sweets and treats for the next 40 days.
Lent is a time of reflection and prayer for Catholics, but several ethnicities have their own unique ways of observing the season.
According to Gretchen Baumgardt, assistant director of University Ministry, the ashes spread on people's foreheads for Ash Wednesday come from burnt palms.
Baumgardt said Gesu Church has a ritual in which palms are collected from last Palm Sunday and are burnt for Ash Wednesday. According to Greg Dues' guide Catholic Customs and Traditions, as early as the fourth century local churches spread ashes on people's foreheads, temporarily excommunicating or expelling public sinners from the community. These people were guilty of scandals like heresy, murder and adultery. By the 11th century, traditions were observed similar to the ones we have today.
Mardi Gras, which immediately precedes Lent, is French for "Fat Tuesday," when people can enjoy themselves for the last time before they begin a period of severe fasting and abstaining from meat, according to Dues. Popular carnivals during the 14th century reflected pre-Christian revelry and masquerading associated with the ancient pagan observance of spring or vernal equinox.
The Polish Center of Milwaukee celebrates the season by selling paczkis for Fat Tuesday.
According to Heidi Dietrich, administrative assistant for the center, they took orders for the last few weeks and Fat Tuesday is the paczki pick-up day. In Poland, people eat paczkis on Fat Thursday, the Thursday before Lent. Paczkis are cream-filled pastries similar to doughnuts, "only richer and more delicious," Dietrich said. Polish Americans call Fat Tuesday "Paczki Day."
There are no specifically Irish traditions during the Lenten season, according to Kristine Pluskota, executive director of the Irish Cultural Heritage Center.
"We follow the Catholic Church guidelines during Lent," she said.
Last year, Pluskota said, Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan gave the Irish a special privilege to eat corned beef on Friday, since St. Patrick's Day fell on a Friday. (This year, it falls on a Saturday.)
Germans celebrate Faching, the German equivalent to Mardi Gras, according to Milwaukee historian E.J. Brumder.
"Faching is a time right before Lent when people are allowed to act out and let off steam before Lent begins," Brumder said. "People are allowed to dress up and go out on your own even if you are married." He said the tradition is especially popular in Bavaria because more Catholics live in the south, whereas more Lutherans live in the north.
Mexicans celebrate traditions similar to other ethnicities but every Friday families eat traditional dishes. According to Rev. Eleazar Perez of St. Adalbert's Catholic Church, 1923 W. Beecher St., the type of dishes that families eat depend on what part of Mexico they are from.
"Capirotada is a type of sweetened white bread with coconut and raisins that people meet for of Fridays during Lent," he said.
According to Perez, many Mexicans also say the rosary every Friday during Lent and the Crucifix is very important to Mexican people during the season.