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I used the original caption from the original post I saw on vK. Maslenitsa is the last fling before the onset of the Great Lent. It’s our Russian Mardi Gras… it lasts the whole week before Clean Monday, the beginning of the fast. You party hearty until the cannon goes off at midnight… then, “Maslenitsa’s over! It’s Lent! It’s time to fast”. As everyone knows, “A house is not a home until there’s a cat in it”… such is our Russian folk wisdom. Therefore, even our cats and our other animals share in our festive mood, too. Maslenitsa has pagan roots, like so much else in traditional Christianity, but don’t let that make you drop it. That’s crackbrained… the Church has “baptised” many things, and Maslenitsa is one of them (besides being tonnes o’ fun). The last day of Maslenitsa coincides with the Sunday of Forgiveness on the formal Church calendar. We ask forgiveness of others and extend it to those who ask it of us. Besides this, the women of the family go to visit the family graves, asking forgiveness of the departed, laying blini on the grave (and sometimes pouring out some vodka, too). In country parts, many people do kindnesses to animals.
Christ came to transfigure and redeem the WHOLE world… not just mankind and not just “religious” things. Think on that…
BMD
Filed under: animals, Christian, Orthodox life, popular life and customs, religious, Russian, social life and customs Tagged: Animal, animals, Cat, cats, celebrations, Christian, Christianity, domestic cats, Eastern Orthodox Church, Forgiveness, Forgiveness Sunday, Great Lent, Lent, Maslenitsa, Orthodox, Orthodoxy, Pet, Pets, Pre-Lenten Season, Religion, Religion and Spirituality, Russia, Russian, Russian culture, Russian Orthodox Church