Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras, means “Fat Tuesday” in French. It is also called “Shrove Tuesday,” or “Shrovetide” and it is the last day before of a period of forty days that fall before Easter, called Lent. We usually think of New Orleans Louisiana, USA when we think of Mardi Gras today, but it actually goes back in time and it actually has religions connections.

In the olden days, Catholics were not supposed to eat meat on Fridays or during Lent, so after the holiday of Christmas and before the 40 day period of Lent, during a period of time known as Carnival (meaning "farewell to the flesh) they had to use up what meat they had because they would not get any for a while, and the last day ended up being a sort of celebration. hence, "carnival."

This " Carnival" traditionally begins on what is known as Twelfth Night. Twelfth Night is the Twelfth Day after Christmas, known on the Catholic calendar as "Epiphany, a day is said to commemorate the adoration of the wise men visiting Jesus, as well as Jesus’ Baptism and the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine at the Wedding in Cana. The date of which changes depending on the Sunday in which Easter falls, but in the Gregorian Calendar, it is always a Tuesday, a very FAT Tuesday as you use up all your excess, hence the term, "Mardi Gras."

Mardi Gras became a party, with the belief that before a long period of deprivation (Lent and thereby repentance from sin,) human nature should allow itself some exceptional license in the way of frolic and good cheer. In some ways then, what seems to be a free-forall is actually quite a serious occasion, for Shrovetide and Mardi Gras were not only a time for making the most of your eggs by making pancakes and eating the last of your meat for a while, it was also a time of the confessing of sins to receive absolution from them. Unfortunately, some people see such an occasion as a party, as a license to act wild, lewd and to get drunk, a time of “getting in as many sins as possible” before the good work of abstaining from sin during the 40 days of Lent.

Critics of such behavior liken that the festivities of Mardi Gras is more attune to the ancient fertility festivals of pagan religions called Lupercalia, moreso that upon the godliness that the Christian church is supposed to represent in the world. The may be right.

In the second century BC, Rome commonly celebrated a holiday known as Lupercalia around February 15th. It was a religuos sort of holiday too, celebrating “fertility” and “purification.” Several sources note that it was not remembered exactly to who or what the holiday was being celebrated in honor of, but for sure it was a popular, festive city-wide celebration. Historians say that men would get dressed up in costume and roam through the streets of the city, dressed in nothing but skins of animals that had been sacrificed, (goat and dog in particular.) They would then lash the roaming women with whips called februa, (which means purification.) The men of the day apparently believed that women would be more fertile after being lashed with the whips and would also have easier childbirth.

Although the actually history of why this was done is sketchy, some sources say that Lupercalia, was probably to honor the she-wolf Rumina, that suckled the Roman twins, Romulus (the founder of Rome) and Remus. Others believe it to have been Faunus, a woodland deity identified with the Greek god, Pan, who was a mischievous, half-man half-goat creature, similar to a satyr.

It may have been a combination of many things that roused the people to “worship” their deities and celebrate as such, but a look at Mardi Gras parades today with their wild costumes and traditions can leave a person with the same sense of wonderment.

As Christianity spread across the world from Jerusalem where it began 2000 years ago, people were encouraged gave up their pagan rites and druid rituals and join “the church.” But converting cultures was no easy task. In fact when the reigning pope tried to end Lupercalia in the middle ages he was met with angry mobs. People like their customs and their celebrations.

Even today Mardi Gras is big event, a traditional celebration. It was a big yearly event in New Orleans, Louisiana, a tradition since 1699 when the French-Canadian explorer Pierre le Monye, Sieur de Iberville made his way down the Mississippi River.