Definition of "shriving" []

• Third-person singular simple present indicative form of shrive. (verb)
• The hearing of a confession of sins. (noun)

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• "The tradition of making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday stretches back to about Tudor times, a good 500 years after the notion of "shriving" - or confessing to sins - became part of popular religious practice on the last day before the start of Lent."
• "Before the Reformation, the church bell called a shriving bell tolled on Shrove Tuesday to call people to church."
• "(in which I include psychoanalysis), the idea of shriving oneself of fears and other besetting difficulties has its roots -- as far as Western culture is concerned -- in the confessional, though it seems likely that reflexes of that procedure could be discovered in profound Eastern religions if not in shamanistic practices."