Today is Fat Tuesday, the culmination of the famous season of Mardi Gras.
Debauchery. Bacchanalia. Floats, costumes, beads and masks, and lots of drinking and partying. That’s what we think of when we hear the term Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday.
There is a lot more behind it. Also called Shrove Tuesday, it marks the last day of the liturgical calendar before Lent begins.
After Catholicism spread throughout Europe, many cultures celebrated the final day before Lent began in ways unique to that individual culture. Eggs, and milk were finished off in one day, giving rise to the term Fat Tuesday. In Poland, such things as lard, sugar, eggs, and fruit were forbidden during Lent, and the beloved pączki became a special treat for Fat Tuesday, and in Detroit they still sell many thousands of them to long lines of people.
Enjoy your Fat Tuesday, and spare a thought to the next forty days. Why not observe Lent, and use the time to more deeply appreciate Christ’s sacrifice and his love for us?
I am sure you’ve seen people on Ash Wednesday with a cross traced on their foreheads. Many churches have Ash Wednesday services, and all are welcome. It’s a thought provoking way to begin your journey, to center and prepare yourself to make changes, to clean out some baggage and make more room for the truly important things.
Thoughtful and welcome. Thx
Shrove Tuesday and, not well known, The Feast of the Holy Face.
St David of Wales!
It is sad to see so many who actually worship liturgy and formality of “religion” all the while believing they are born again/saved.
The devil revels in such counterfeits (just witness the perversion and debauchery accompanying Mardi Gras ) and in my 50 years since being born again, the most resistant to the true gospel seem to be those who are the most steeped in religious formality.
Such things are not to be confused with the Bible’s admonition that Christians should not be islands unto themselves, retreating from the world and considering all forms of collective worship to be corrupted. We are instead told that we should not “forsake the gathering of believers.”
Are you suggesting that attending an Ash Wednesday service and receiving ashes means that a person worships liturgy and is not born again?
Truth vs. Tradition. Tradition and formallity has led to evil. I grew up there and if you could see how wicked this is you could understand. Witchcraft is celebrated along with every sinful desire you can imagine. But then Ash Wed. Makes it all go away?
Perversion of truth.
Tradition does not have to lead to evil. For many it simply offers a fun way to build community and live their faith in ways that are meaningful to them.
People who become to rigid and staunch about rituals and Traditions, and judge others, exist in all walks of life. It’s a puritanical personality type that rears it’s ugly head in every group. Catholics are not immune. But some of the most judgemental people I have ever known are people who would not set foot inside a church.
Women love social clubs and potlucks. It’s fun! Men provide the security and safety that women enjoy. When men take their cues from women and fashion their behavior after women, all Hell breaks loose, until different men who act unapologetically come on the scene.
Women don’t like it when men cry.
No I am not. But the problem is it is very easy for people to substitute formality for faith. This phenomenon is by no means limited to Catholicism, Greek Orthodox and other very ritualistic churches as it applies anywhere the focus shifts from Christ and Him crucified. I have attended/visited a great many churches in my 50 years as a Christian and seen this played out in Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopal and others.
It is a facet of how human nature that can be very subtle in that, just as in myriad examples in the Bible, people begin substituting form for substance.
The practice you mention is harmless in itself and in its proper place is a powerful reminder of Christ’s sacrifice for us. The rub, as in most things is we too often confuse the representation for the reality.
It is not for you to save others .
You cannot do that.
You can open your heart, and allow God to use you to save others, but..
OMG man , you’ve got to have all your pride stripped away. Not an easy path.
No clue if this is what you mean, but your comments remind me of my experience this past year. On Christmas Eve I went to a 5 0’clock service in a tiny country church, it doesn’t have running water, indoor plumbing, a porta-john is it. Essentially a one room school house type building, the pews were built for tiny people of yesteryear.
20 people were there and 8 of them were the preacher and his family. One family was there in their new matching flannel shirts, baseball hats, and were probably packing heat. The preacher wore khaki pants and a cotton Oxford. No one wore a mask. The decorations were simple, and I would bet most of them came from the Dollar Tree. Someone had gone out to the woods and had cut a Charlie Brown type tree decorated by children. Everyone was friendly, happy and excited it was Christmas Eve. It was the BEST Christmas Eve service I have ever attended. I will never forget it. I get kinda emotional thinking about it.
Then I went to the 11 o’clock at a large wealthy Episcopal church. Gorgeous old church, beautiful Christmas greenery and poinsettias, stain glass windows, literally a million dollar organ, lots of shiny gold, dramatic flowing robes, and all the rest. The congregation was dressed to the 9’s, lots of rich horse estate type people, you could smell their money. There were 30 people there, all wearing masks. It was a dull service, people were cold, I did not feel one iota of Christmas. Everything was a show, a presentation. They were doing their duty to show up for Christmas Eve service.
Both churches are old filled w/history, both services we sang the same carols, heard essentially the same message, and did the candles singing Silent Night. The contrast was amazing. One church was honest, down to earth, loving, the other was full of pomp and circumstance. It’s all about the people and their intent. Every church has its belief system and style of worship, and some are clearly better than others.
The important thing is both churches brought people together to tell us the story of Christ’s birth. We cannot allow the Communists to take that from us. We just can’t.
As a sidebar I grew up as a PK, preacher’s kid. Point being is that I have been to many, many Christmas Eve services. I can say it is hard when you grow up as a PK and then try to find a church, no one does it like my dad did it.
On his death bed his wife was holding his left hand, I was holding his right, my sisters were there, and we were singing Amazing Grace when he took his last breath on this Earth. Not many people get that nice of a passing, so I am pretty sure God loved him and his ministering to others. He was a WWII Vet that served on Guam, came home and heard the calling. I still miss him and he has been gone for a very long time.
Your question answers itself.
Who is your Savior? Ashes? A liturgy?
Have you seen the feet of Jesus? Were you too embarrassed to look at his face….begging Him not to sacrifice Himself because you knew you are not worth it?
Father in Heaven, Lord Jesus…do not save me. I am not worth it. Please God do not look at me. I am a wretch.
God knows us more than our Apple iPhones. Whatever we’ve done, God has seen it a 100 million times before.
Did you see his feet? Did Jesus come to you? Did you only see his feet because you couldn’t raise your head?
Born again.
Read my comment above about what Lent means to me, and why. I am steeped in Catholicism, straight from Jesus to me. Express yourself, fine, but don’t be insulting here. If you don’t agree go worship where and how you want to.
I am sick and tired of the attitude of superiority. I converted to Catholicism after a year of intense study. I know my Bible as well as any other Christian, short of theologians perhaps. I know Church history, the good and the bad. I know the writings of the early Church fathers.
My knowledge and education have enabled me to make every bit as informed, wise, and grace filled choice as you have.
It’s what’s in your heart that counts. That’s what we all be asked on Judgement Day.
If by that you mean you have in true humility and repentance accepted and follow Christ as set out in the Biblical Gospel, I wholly agree. The reason I hedged my reply is that I know many people who think they are “good in their hearts” that are sadly lost.
No man is capable of ‘true’ humility, and God doesn’t demand that. God knows who we are. How easily we see the mote in the other’s eye and call THEM sadly lost.
What’s in your heart will show in your actions, otherwise what does it matter?
“If you love me, feed my sheep.”
Menagerie,
I was raised as a Catholic. I am no longer one, although I still feel very kindly toward the people who believe. I have a great deal of sympathy for people who want so much to believe in Christ’s Church, but who are shocked and appalled by his current Vicar here on Earth. When I was a practicing Catholic, we never had any questions about the Pope because they all acted as a Pope should act.
Now, however, things are different. I remember reading Ann Barnhardt on the current Pope and her anger at what she sees as his betrayal of Christ’s Church is palpable. She is by no means alone in her feelings. I think it is hard to be Catholic these days compared to what it was when I was a boy. May God bless all of you who are working so hard to be good members of the Faith.
There have been anti-popes and heretics among high ranking clergy for most of our history. The church is made up of humans, and humans will always make mistakes. To leave the church because of it is short sighted.
Just look at Arianism and the Albigensians. Actual wars have been fought over doctrine. God is aware of our faults, and thank God he is merciful. We all need it.
A Church is the assembly of those who gather in Jesus name. He is there. The Body of Christ is formed. A Church is not a building. It is not a man holding a gold encrusted shepherd’s hook and wearing a pointy hat.
When Jesus made His sacrifice for us, He ended the Priesthood. The curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the ‘unwashed’ was torn down,
Anyone of us can now talk directly to God, while hiding behind Jesus the Christ.
Our Father, who art in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins
As we forgive those indebted to us.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
for ever and ever. Amen.
We talk directly to God, in all our sinfullness, hiding behind Jesus, who took our sins and hung on a Cross in payment. No Priests needed as intermediaries. Jesus is our intermediary.
Our fight is not with each other. If Jesus the Christ is the goal, then don’t be a stumbling block. Mormons live the New Testament. I came to the Christ through Buddha.
Jesus said…
‘I am the way, the truth, and the Life’.
None come to me, lest He who sent Me, draws him.’
I got drawn. Didn’t deserve to be drawn, but got drawn.
There is no anger. No sick and tired. A little frustration. Alot of patience. So many lost, as far as the eye can see.
A sinner still, like a Trustee in a Prison.
Menagerie, I never guessed you were a convert! I’m an unlapse, or delapse, or something to that effect. Tridentine Mass made all the difference when I was tentatively coming home.
I’ve heard it called being a “revert.” The storm is upon us, we just need to stay in the boat!
Well said. I’m also a convert – and we converts are the most faithful.
There are some who criticize the Catholic church because of the activities of some of its clergy, including popes. That would be akin to criticizing Protestant and non-denominational churches because of the activities of some of their clergy. These are logical fallacies – attributing a property that belongs to a subset to the whole set.
We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, even if we disagree on a few minor points. Even the early apostles and church fathers disagreed on some points – but all believe in the central tenets of Christianity: our Lord died and arose again, and our sins were hence conquered.
God bless and may your faith multiply!
Just to clarify my post—I took the occasion of the original post to merely inject a caution that is not at all limited to Catholicism or any other denomination that professes to be “Christian” (I use quotes to emphasize the term has sadly been hijacked by false “religionists”—my meaning is again the same as that given to us by God in the scripture in the context of the Gospel as distinguished from false doctrines created by men).
I am merely saying that, just as we see in the many examples in the Bible about the Pharisees and other “religious” people, formality (liturgy, days of the calendar, order of service, the kind of worship (music) allowed etc.) is a 2-edged sword. While for many actual Christians (and only God knows categorically who they are) these things add depth to their faith, for others, those are the things they actually “worship,” having never come to a saving knowledge of Christ and Him crucified.
We see this in other religions (I distinguish between “religion” and the Christian faith in that the latter has nothing to do with being “religious” but is rather an individual, personal relationship with God through the saving Grace of His Son) where there are beliefs such as being a “Christian” can be inherited because a person had “Christian” parents etc.
The danger of this confusion exists in any church, it is no respecter of denominations etc.
It is simply a part of human nature, many individuals are scrupulous to a degree that hinders them emotionally and spiritually. It doesn’t have to involve religion, just look at the left. They eschew religion and instead become scrupulous when it comes to their ideology. If you don’t where a mask and get vaxxed you are a terrible person. It’s a deep flaw that deserves compassion, life is miserable for these bullies.
They actively chose their misery unfortunately. It’s sad.
I think what you said reminds me of a bible passage….paraphrasing here, all the “good” works we do are nothing but filthy rags in the sight of our Father. All fall short, all of us.. It’s Jesus. He is the church and the hounds of hell will never prevail.
Without Him, I am nothing. I’m barely hanging on now for crying out loud.
There was a Methodist minister in our community who was arrested this week for meth and CP. It would never dawn on me to blame the Methodist Church for his actions.
Thank you
My post was accompanied by sincere humility that I have tried to embrace ever since I understood that Christ suffered, was killed on a cruel cross and was resurrected for ME, a sinner.
I also try hard not to point fingers at anyone. My post was not “directed” at anyone but rather is just a caution along our individual walks that we are but humans and as such are vulnerable to the wiles of Satan who does not attack us head on but very very subtlety and using the camouflage afforded by religious things created by humans, his attacks are harder to discern.
The liturgical nature of the Church revolves around the Sacraments, instituted by Christ himself. The liturgy and the Sacraments do not fall into the category of religious things created by humans, but I do agree that there are Christians who can abuse such things, get lost in them and miss their purpose altogether.
Thank you for all your posts. I love involving religion and for it to be Catholicism makes it even better! Menagerie, you sought the truth and you found it in Catholicism.
My husband too was a convert. What’s so amazing was he received 5 of the 7 Sacraments in less than 2 months: Baptism, Reconciliation, Eucharist, Comfirmation, and Matrimony. I joke and tell him all I need to do is die and he can be a priest and receive anointing of the sick and he can get all 7. 😆
Idk how he was given the grace to believe in God when he grew up with no religion and found God in the Catholic church when it could’ve been any church, but maybe..it was Christ hidden in the euCHaRIST and who’s the best person to lead us to Christ? Perhaps His mother?? We are prideful to think we can get to heaven on our own without the help of others or the Sacraments.
Please keep up your posts. I love them. I know you’re sprinkling your faith and spreading the Gospel in your own way. I came here to seek truth in what goes on in our country and around the world. And whenever I see your posts, I can’t help but feel the Holy Spirit has guided me to the right place. Thank you. Our Catholic church is better for you are in it. Same goes CTH. 🙏🏻✝️🙏🏻
God bless you Menagerie. Your witness has meant a lot to me over the years, and I know it has an an impact on so many.
There is an importance to rituals, whether religious or secular; they create time, space, conscious intention, and act as markers as to what has gone and make space for new life, experiences, intentions, to appear – not dissimilar to the hope of rebirth for humankind which Eastertide creates.
Look hard enough and one can find the devil in anything. Look harder still and one can catch a glimpse of the birth of hope, and fresh beginnings hidden beneath all the mental admonitions one has created from false understandings and misunderstandings, and once glimpsed, we can begin anew.
Rituals act as denotation marks, (is the better word demarcation?)’here begins’, ‘from henceforth’ – there was a lesson once, wish I could remember which class it came from, but the early Christians, in the first century, only held baptisms at Easter time. Rituals. They are important in human lives.
adding: in times of great upheaval, fears, doubts, most often grief, the formality of ritual in liturgy and following the calendar of the Church, regardless of denomination, sets a safe passageway for those stuck in their fear, doubts, grief. A safe haven if you will. Some people need this for a short time, some for perhaps an entire lifetime. Who are we to judge the format our Creator has given us to work within?
JumpingJarhead.
Like you, I am born again. Do not be a stumbling block in another’s path. Each soul in this life grasps at a piece. Be patient with others, as you would have others be patient with you. It’s a narrow gate, and few go in that way.
Carne vale, goodbye meat.
This should be an historic Lent for all of us who understand that the world is off the rails because we in the west have failed, utterly, to follow in God’s ways. Prayer and fasting, reparation and reconciliation is how we get back home. I was pleased to see that Bannon, who now broadcasts with an image of Jesus behind him everyday, did a brief segment on Lent and recommended a Lenten cookbook yesterday.
He always opens his show saying such and such date “in the year of our Lord”.
As he says we are in a spiritual war.
Well said.
Lent is a great time if self reflection, penance and trying to obtain a vetter way of avoiding sin and temptation.
Will be spending more time in prayer and some improved sacrifice.
Last year was the first time I really ever stuck with a Lent commitment. Hope to get better at it.
One of my favorite Lenten practices is praying the stations of the cross each week. It is such a wonderful way to meditate on Christ’s passion and death, all done out of love for us. Most Catholic churches have weekly stations during Lent. You can also pray them at home. Each prayer begins “We adore You oh Christ and we praise You because by your holy cross You have redeemed the world”
Anybody and everybody who wishes to pray the Stations is welcome to visit a Catholic church—a loving sacrifice of time and effort is to visit various Catholics churches during Lent to experience a variety of Stations. Most churches offer a group Stations each Friday (sometimes with a Lenten “fast meal” afterwards).
God bless you all in these coming weeks, as you enter your own personal journey to Calvary. Iesu Christe crucifixe, miserere mei.
Mardi gras is wicked. Grew up with that crap. The things that go on with that is evil and criminal, and I am being conservative in my words. But hey all is forgiven on ash Wed.
A perversion of the true meaning of that day.
Did that when I was young and now we just eat crawfish and decide where to get our ashes tomorrow.
Great Lent, or the Fast, in the Orthodox Christian Church begins next Monday.
That is February 22nd on the Patristic Calendar and March 7th on the civil calendar.
The lines for pączki (say “punch-key”… it’s a polish language thing, you wouldn’t understand) were everywhere here in the “D”. Thousands? More like tens, maybe hundreds of thousands. Had four already. They’re real donuts in my opinion, not those 3/4 air puffs from Dunkin, Timmy’s or Crappy Cremes. Thanks for the call out for Detroit. I tell everyone and anyone who’ll listen about TreeHouse.
Always appreciate these Holiday posts. Thank you for sharing!
There were also special penances added to atone for the excesses of Mardi Gras. Don’t be that guy.
A great message. Thank you.
In our neck of the woods in Wisconsin a large number of Polish immigrants settled in the late 19th century. We have pacskis (pronounced ponch-keys) at many local bakeries for Fat Tuesday. Delicious.
In Germany it’s called Fashcing. Bread and Brats. Women hanging off balconies exposing their breasts. Fat Tuesday in America. New Orleans. Women hanging off balconies exposing their breasts..for beads.
Satan turned Lent into a Bacchanal, as Satan is wont to do.
This is the link that my church pulled some photos and stories how countries around the world celebrate. I found it interesting. Pretty sure I can’t run w/a frying pan and flip a pancake.
What I found really sad is that I could not find one single church in my area doing a pancake supper today. They have become lazy using Covid as the excuse. In the past numerous churches offered them to the community faithfully every year.
A few are having Ash Wednesday services tomorrow, one is doing it by zoom. I don’t see the point. Another has offered to make arrangements if you want to pick up some ashes.
https://discover.hubpages.com/holidays/How-Shrove-Tuesday-is-Celebrated-Around-the-World
One thing I can say for the Catholic Church, and I have no idea if they even do it anymore was to have Mass all the time so you could always attend at various times.
I wished churches would offer more than Sunday morning w/Wednesday night Bible study. It has taken me many, many years to find a church that meets in the evening that isn’t a Sunday. It has large attendance. Not everyone can make Sunday morning. What I really miss are the days when churches kept their doors open and you could walk into almost any church in the country and pray.
Anyway, customs and traditions are important to keep and help keep us grounded. It keeps the years in perpetual motion. Between Covid and the Communists taking over our churches are hurting. W/out them, we are not America.
Thanks for the post!
We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee, for by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.
O Crux ave, spes unica,
mundi salus et gloria !
piis adauge gratiam,
reisque dele crimina.
O hail the Cross our only hope
salvation and glory of the world !
grant increase of grace to believers
and remove the sins of the guilty.