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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. 

IS 9:1-6

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America, has dispatched a passionate open letter to American Catholics in advance of election day 2024.  [Source Link]

Dear Faithful American Catholics,

I am addressing all of you, a few days before the Presidential Election that will call millions of American citizens to the polls.

Even in conditions of relative normality, the exercise of the vote is your moral duty, through which you cooperate in the first person in choosing the person who will lead the Nation for the next four years. But in this coming electoral round – just as in 2020 and indeed much more so – you are not simply called to choose between two candidates who happen to be on different political sides but who both nevertheless have the common good at heart in compliance with the Constitution and the Law. No; in this election you must choose between two radically opposed ways of conceiving the government of your Nation: you are called to choose between democracy and dictatorship, between freedom and slavery.

On one side we have candidate Donald J. Trump, who, despite serious problems in his positions – especially in the matter of abortion and assisted procreation – has as his objective the common good and the protection of the fundamental freedoms of citizens. In Donald Trump’s America, every Catholic can practice their Faith and educate their children in it without interference from the State.

On the other side we have a candidate and a party that promotes everything that directly opposes the Faith and Morals of the Catholic Church. In Kamala Harris’ America, Catholics – but also Protestants – are considered fundamentalists to be marginalized and eliminated, and their children are considered the property of the State, which arrogates to itself the right to lead them astray from an early age in both body and soul. Trump’s America can become great and prosperous again. Harris’ America is destined for invasion and for moral, social, and economic destruction: the most ferocious dictatorship.

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I’m really interested in what you guys think about this video.  Watch the first few minutes if you don’t have the time for the whole thing. It’s just really weird.

I’m not generally prone to think often about the book of (potential) revelation, but for some reason this pope really gives me the heebie jeebies.  He seems to really enjoy the global spotlight, and I don’t think I can remember a pope who liked the adulation and attention as much as this one. WATCH (prompted): 

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I bit my tongue, preferring to focus my energy on the celebration of Easter as it represents the purest exhibition of Christian faith, the resurrection.

The sun rose today as it deemed to do by a loving God who does not make mistakes.  My faith renewed with thoughts of the events celebrated. The greatest and purest reflection of human Love leaving the domain of His creation for return.  His body gone. He is risen.

The world behind is a beautiful place. The natural world exists beyond the understanding of men, though many try -as they will- with intellectual reconciliations and explanations for how it works.

It works because it is designed to work. All of it is naturally His. All of it is connected with not a detail overlooked. All of it is far beyond our ordinary comprehension.

In the world of our Creator there is pure beauty, pure love, stunning design. However, in the sphere of men, there is a manipulation that intentionally turns away from the creation. What the Biden administration have promoted on this faithful day of Christian celebration, almost defies comprehension. Almost….

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Wow, talk about a strange convergence of conversations.  As we discuss the global financial cleaving, Cardinal Gerhard Müller talks about how the West is diminishing God and faith, but faith is growing outside the western control zone.

Is the Christian faith connected more closely to the social fabric of nationalism, and is globalism an outcome of disconnected faith from national value?  Cardinal Müller doesn’t draw that socioeconomic relationship directly; however, what he describes is completely in alignment with the proposition. WATCH:

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