A friend shared an interesting thing that happened to her. She took her daughter to preschool (Maternelle) the other day, and stayed with her for a while. Her daughter asked her to draw a picture for her, and said she wanted a picture of a castle.
So a picture of a castle was duly drawn and presented, with a cross on the top of a spire on the castle. When my friend was leaving, a teacher came up to her and asked to speak to her.
She told my friend that she could not draw a picture of a church in the school, since they were Laïc (e.g., secular). Any religious references are not allowed in the school. If she wanted to remove the cross, the drawing was okay, but she couldn’t have a picture with a cross on it.
Fast forward to last Tuesday (Feb 2), which in France is a holiday called Chandeleur, or jour des crêpes. It is a religious holiday that is associated with the purification of Mary and the presentation of the baby Jesus at the Temple forty days after his birth (sometimes referred to as Candlemas in English).
Guess what the children did that Tuesday? They made crêpes to celebrate Chandeleur. The irony was not lost on my friend.
For many French, La Chandeleur is a chance to enjoy a lot of crêpes, as well as do some fortune telling while making them.
The tradition is to hold a coin in your writing hand and a crêpe pan in the other; then toss the crêpe in the air. If you manage to catch the crêpe in the pan, your family will enjoy prosperity for the rest of the year. (You are also not supposed to eat the first crêpe; that is supposed to be store away in a cupboard until the next La Chandeleur to insure the productivity of your crops. I don’t know how many French still do this).
In defense of the French, they approach many of these religious holidays the same way people in the US celebrate Valentine’s day or St-Patrick’s day (and perhaps Christmas and Easter?). The origin and the reason for the holiday has little to do with how you celebrate it.
Another example is the difference between the day of your birth and you name day (the day when the saint you are named after is celebrated). See more here.
So, although this may cause dissonance in some people, it all makes sense in the context of the culture in which you find these things, and for me, it is part of the journey (as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23) of becoming all things to all people.
And it can be fun to discover these little tidbits when you are in another culture.
For more about French holidays and fêtes, see this article.
