Well, this week the Big Easy and Rio have one thing in common — one huge party. And what is so interesting its very Catholic. It’s a time to let your hair down before the strike of midnight before Ash Wednesday when in the old church they were to be when Catholics abstained from meat during the six week lenten season.
The root of the word “CARnival is the same as the word “inCARnation” the enflesh-ment of the son of God. So we celebrate “Flesh” on the day before Lent. So let your hair down a bit and have fun. And then on Wednesday, let’s be ready for a new series of this blog: The Jesus I know and love.
Now here’s a bit of carnival or Mardi Gras history for you. A carnival is a celebration combining parades, pageantry, folk drama, and feasting that is usually held in Catholic countries during the weeks before Lent. The term Carnival probably comes from the Latin word “carnelevarium”, meaning to remove meat. Typically the Carnival season begins early in the new year, often on the Epiphany, January 6, and ends in February on fat Tuesday (hence Mardi Gras in French). Probably originating in pagan spring fertility rites, the first recorded carnival was the Egyptian feast of Osiris, an event marking the receding of the Nile’s flood water. Carnivals reached a peak of riotous dissipation with the Roman BACCHANALIA and Saturnalia. In the Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church tried to suppress all pagan ideas, it failed when it came to this celebration. The Church incorporated the rite into its own calendar as a period of thanksgiving. Popes sometimes served as patrons.
The nations of Europe, especially France, Spain, and Portugal, gave thanks by throwing parties, wearing masks, and dancing in the streets. All three colonizing powers carried the tradition with them to the New World, but in Brazil it landed with a difference. Not only did the Portuguese have a taste for abandoned merriment, (they brought the “entrudo”, a prank where merry-makers throw water, flour, face powder, and many other things at each other’s faces), but the Negro slaves also took to the celebration. They would smear their faces with flour, borrow an old wig or frayed shirt of the master, and give themselves over to mad revelry for the three days. Many masters even let their slaves roam freely during the celebration. Since the slaves were grateful for the chance to enjoy themselves, they rarely used the occasion as a chance to run away.
Pre-Christian, medieval, and modern carnivals share important thematic features. They celebrate the death of winter and the rebirth of nature, ultimately recommitting the individual to the spiritual and social codes of the culture. Ancient fertility rites, with their sacrifices to the gods, exemplify this commitment, as do the Christian Shrovetide plays. On the other hand, carnivals allow parody of, and offer temporary release from, social and religious constraints. For example, slaves were the equals of their masters during the Roman Saturnalia; the medieval feast of fools included a blasphemous mass; and during carnival masquerades sexual and social taboos are sometimes temporarily suspended.
Tomorrow: Why Ashes on Ash Wednesday?
May I suggest that by Wednesday morning to try be ready to enter into a deeper journey into your inner depths to discover our Lord and at the same time your deepest Self. My longer Arise reflection Lent 2009: Be in solidarity with those who are suffering http://www.spirit7.commight give you an over-all picture of how you might make this season holy — and spiritually fruitful for you, prune some of the dead stuff from your soul and be ready to experience new life, new growth for your self — and for our country.
Dear Lord,
Today we let our hair down a bit and when the the fun is over,
may we be ready to enter the desert on Wednesday with you
and discover how desert experiences can cleanse and purify us and make us whole.
Let us enter the desert willingly and learn its lessons well.
Father Bob's Reflections 