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. 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.
This is a repeat post. I hope you will join us the next weeks as we look toward Good Friday and the Cross, with the goal of making ourselves a little more able to celebrate on Easter Sunday.
If this post isn’t your cup of tea, find another to comment on. The same goes for the Ash Wednesday post tomorrow, and the Sundays of Lent posts.
Basel, Switzerland Fashnach – Feb 19-21 – The Three Most Wondrous Days
View it online- starts at 4am in the morning -Monday Feb 19 – which is 7pm, Sunday Fev 18 PST.
The city lights go off and the three day march with costumed cliques, piccolos, drums, Swiss social commentary ands fabulous costumes being, with due Swiss orderliness. Wonderful food. Old saying about someone who is tardy – they are as late as Basel’s Fashnach – since this was a Protestant country it did not celebrate on the Catholic Mardi Gras calendar.
And screw “mardi gras” too. Just another freak show for degenerates. I read that bazel’s fasnach “has taken steps” to avoid being rayciss™. So “it’s all good”, no? https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/basel-carnival-takes-steps-to-avoid-being-racist/49200870
Do not forget load yourself with – P A C Z K I -please!!!!!!btw..barzo smacznie……
Our family likes to have a nice, full meal for Mardis Gras dinner. Maybe it’s setting us up for fasting the next day. The constrast really helps mark the Lenten season for me.
For the last ten years I have led a secular youth organization that met on Fridays, and I could rarely get away to Stations. This year, we have a new leader, and I can go every Friday to Stations of the Cross!!! I’m almost giddy with anticipation.
Also, this year my grandkids and I have decided to have a “Tavola di San Giuseppe” on the Feast of St. Joseph (March 19) which always falls during Lent. Our version will be to make a number of traditional foods (all meatless), bake decorative breads, and invite our neighbors to join us, since the custom is to feed anyone who knocks at the door. Then we can all celebrate the Communion of Saints and give thanks to God for our many blessings. My father came from a different region of Italy, Puglia, but I figure we can adopt this Sicilian tradition and remember two good men: St. Joseph and my daddy.
Please forward me your address. Can I bring some chips or rolls or something?
I am told that for Catholics couples tonight is date night. I just had eggs and pancakes.
I lived in the “big easy,” the intent of the celebration is gone. It is nothing but a hedonistic party, and it is very base. The French quater is ground zero, not that it isnt in other areas. The celebrations revolve around the false gods, zeus, Krewe du Vieux and ‘tit Rex, comus, cleopatra, ect. Wheres Christ? We stayed away. I was forced while in high school to march in one of the parades in band going down town cbd areas, we had beer thrown at us women throwing their bras, and assualted. This was in 1968. I cant imagine how debased it is now. No fan.
Happy Mardi Gras! I’m afraid I was guilty of serial Debauchery as a much younger man
I’m a fan of the Mardi Gras Indians, I mainly like the music repertoire they play, with well-known standards in the parade-music tradition. One trip to New Orleans, I caught Big Chief Bo Dollis and the Wild Magnolias at a small bar out the trolley line in the University district, a block back from the main line. They consisted of about a 6-piece electric funk band with 5 singers up front at mics, a couple in full headdresses. They played all my favorite parade songs
Mardi Gras Indians History and Tradition | Mardi Gras New Orleans
Big Chief Bo Dollis Jr. & The Wild Magnolias
Ranks: Spy Boy, Flag Boy, & Big Chiefs | Mardi Gras New Orleans
I have an Earth Cam and can see the Krazy Korner and also a balcony when I click on it. That has been on my computer for years and I check in on Bourbon Street a few times during the year. Busy, busy street tonight.
Good thing the Bourbon Street Earth Cam doesn’t have smell avail.
I find any Mardi Gras too debauched for my liking
I’d rather just have pancakes.
Your articles and the comments they bring forth are Always an Interesting Read , Menagerie !
Thank You So Much 😊
Hugs for You 🤗
TY, Good message Menagerie. 🙂
I thank you for this post and more importantly what I should be focusing on over the next 40 days. Being born and raised Catholic, I haven’t always participated %100 in my Catholic faith, however as a Christian, I take pride in knowing it was through my Catholic faith that I was brought to Jesus Christ and God.
However, thanks to the CTH, I have a new word in my vocabulary, Bacchanalia, to which I shall fully participate in when lent is over.
As my parish priest once said to us altar boys one Sunday morning at Easter Mass, ” wine, it was good enough for Jesus so its good enough for me”.
Happy Ash Wednesday!
Beautiful post, Menagerie. Thank you.