Lent 2009
Swamps have something to teach us
Editors Note: This is the last of a series from three years ago:
Lake Charles, LA
Tuesday, March 4, 2009
Dear Friends,
My retreat is in its final day now.
I don’t at all like this swampy wilderness. It’s so bleak, uninspiring; makes me feel depressed. We walk above it on the catwalk. The swamp connotes the stagnation, the stuck-ness of life. I said the other day that sin is stuck-ness. Not growing. Not moving.
One might ask the question: Am I in a swamp? Is my life not going anywhere? Is there no place to get a firm footing?
So, let’s think about that. Where are we stuck in life? Where’s the stagnation?
What do we need to do to paddle our canoe out of the swamp onto the river of life again and start flowing downstream.
And here’s another thought for you: Heaven is down, not up; that is, if you apply the metaphor that life is flowing like a river. Rivers flow down to the sea. The ocean is a symbol for the mystical life, eternal life, the “the Other Side of Silence” as Morton Kelsey calls it in one of my favorite books.
So, figure out what’s needed to get you unstuck and flowing again.
And if it looks like you’ll be stuck for a while (as our economy has been) then . . . well, um, learn to live it / grow with it / find life while you’re waiting / talk with the people you’re stuck with. And most of all, learn how to love the one’s you’re with.
And don’t let the frickin’ mosquitoes get you!
I’ll be on my way back to Florida after a very fruitful retreat. Thanks for your prayers.
With love,
Bob Traupman
contemplative writer
Voices in the wilderness
Editors Note: This is part of a series I wrote three years ago. Enjoy.
Friday after Ash Wednesday / February 27, 2009
Lake Charles, Louisiana in a bayou
Dear friends,
Lent always begins by inviting us to go into our own wilderness experience with Jesus. Mine began this morning (Friday.)
I slept well but almost crashed my 65-year-old bones onto the floor, not used to a single bed. I spent time with my Lord as usual this morning. The harp sound on my iphone at 3:33 sounded like it was echoing in a cathedral; I was very hungry about 5 AM, had some cheese and eggs, resonated deeply with an awesome reflection by St. John Chrysostom on prayer, and rested deeply on the Word as I am accustomed.
(The ancient process of Lectio Divina has one savor the sacred text, phrase by phrase, listen to whatever the Spirit wants to say to you in particular and then rest in the word; literally, to fall asleep and let God do his work in you below the level of your consciousness. Indeed, that is how one changes. We surrender to God’s grace and let him do the work of transformation and purification on a very deep level at the core of our being. Thus, if we let go and surrender, if we listen in the silence, the process of transformation becomes easy for us.
I was awakened by the sound of birds greeting the early morning, though the sun had decided not to appear behind the misty clouds that are still now streaming across the sky. My ears were very attuned to the bird-song, actually a little quartet of four distinct species. I wish I would listen to nature’s sounds more often!
With an 8 oz foam cup of too-strong coffee, I headed down into the cypress swamp. My mood became quite depressed at the site of decay, of long-dead stumps. (I don’t find this bayou very inspiring; there’s death and decay everywhere, but also I can see tiny buds on the cypress when I looked closely. I became aware of the stillness. And thought of what Jesus must have experienced in that other kind of wilderness, the desert. This morning I am attentive to every sound, the sounds of silence, the voices of the wilderness:
The bees busy on one of the few flowering plants /The squeaky hinge on the gate that invites one to be open to a watery-wilderness experience / The stirring of the trees in the wind / hounds barking a mile away / a train whistle in the distance / my breath as it enters and exits my nostrils/ my pulse against my neck/ the hoot of an owl in the wood next to the bayou / the crack of a twig as I walk / the rustle of leaves underfoot along the bank of the Calisceau.
And when I got back to the retreat center, a quadrangle of yellow brick corridors around a stark empty courtyard with one tulip tree already budding in one corner, there are the voices of the bass and treble wind chimes and the Angelus bell! Oh, how long it’s been since I’ve said the Angelus! Every town and village in the Middle Ages rang out the Angelus bells morning, noon and night. That was a part of Catholic life long forgotten now.
The message of the wilderness for us is exactly that: to tune us into the sounds, the voices in our lives. Each of us are bombarded with so many sounds, conflicting /confusing / crashing sounds that make it difficult for us to hear the soft voices that bear the messages from afar or the cries of a hurting inner-child within.
Jesus went into the desert to sort out those voices. The harsh voices of the world that tempted him to not even realize that there was a Soft Voice behind and beneath them that would be the Voice he chose to listen to and respond all his short life.
So, we too, have to learn how to silence the Harsh Voices that still inhabit our soul that prompt us to hate ourselves, demean ourselves, do destructive things so that we can hear the Soft Voices, the gentle voices that affirm and nourish us.
In the desert Jesus discovered that there was one still Soft Voice that he loved to hear, the Voice that he learned to call Abba / Father. Jesus is calling his God: Daddy!
Now that’s the message of the desert, the wilderness experience: to learn how to listen deeply. But that’ a major problem for us. Most of us are so uncomfortable with silence that we get very nervous and anxious when we’re by ourselves. Some people have to have some “white noise” the hum of a fan or refrigerator in order to sleep. There is very little silence in our world today. And that means God is left out of our lives because silence is the language God speaks.
And so bring some silence into your Lent each day. If you can’t find any place more creative – for you guys, the garage, close the bathroom door, put the lid down on the john, turn the water to submerge the blast of the TV in the den. Try to do this every day until Easter. You might at first be fearful of the voices you hear, the voices that emerge from within, the voice of your conscience. But realize Jesus did exactly the same thing in the wilderness.
Lenten is about listening. Open the ears of your mind and heart. Don’t be afraid. You will enter the wilderness – the wild-ness – within you. But you will also find yourself and your inner strength, the real you and the Other who loves you and has been there all the time though you knew it not.
I’ll write more whenever Father Don allows me to. Right now, I’m going to go back to the swamp, which is a wilderness experience I don’t like; it’s quite depressing, let alone inspiring. And those damned mosquitoes! I much preferred the wilderness of the desert experience I had exactly a year ago in the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico.
The Jesus I know and love is the One who had the courage to silence the conflicting harsh voices of the world and his own ego to hear and love and respond to the voice of his heavenly Father. He is beckoning me to do that once again here on this retreat.
I will write again soon. I am eager to share more about the Jesus I know and love but Don says now is not the time!
With love,
Bob Traupman
contemplative writer
Carnival
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
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.
We ask you, Lord, to lead the way.
Amen.
Submerged in a book
Dear Friends,
You haven’t heard from me for a week because there’s a time to nourish and a time to be nourished. A time to give and a time to receive. Besides, my body seems to have been requiring extra rest; I haven’t been given the energy to pray and to write in the pre-dawn hours of Cypress Chase A as I prefer. A year ago I made myself crazy and manic trying to do things my way. I think I’ve finally learned to realize that God works quite a bit more slowly than than I would like. The book In Due Season: A Catholic Life by Paul Wilkes is an honest description of a wandering sinner, like me, who has an insatiable thirst for God. It’s the story of Augustine and Thomas Merton. I am reflecting on my own unconventional journey as a priest as I prepare to write. There are similarites and differences which I’m trying to grab hold of. I am also working on my Arise reflection / letter on accepting death. I believe we must let capitalism as we know it die so that a new people-centered economy might rise like the glorious Phoenix from the ashes. Erich Fromm recognized in 1956 Art of Loving) and the movie Matrix in 1999 that as we concentrate on buying and selling of material things we ourselves become commodities as well. Capitalism as we know it is just as atheistic as communism; it has destroyed our spiritual life in this country. The economic crisis is, in reality, a spiritual crisis.
We’re two weeks away from celebrating the Paschal Mysteries, the richest experience of faith and hope and love in which the church renews itself. The sad thing is so few Catholics experience its power for transformation. The experience of Holy Week makes clear that if we enter the way of Jesus and accept our own sufferings, and the dying that needs to take place in us that we will also experience Risen Life. But we must realize, there are not shortcuts for one who intends to live a life of authenticity as Jesus clearly tells us . . . .
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal (John 12:24)
May I suggest that each of us meditate on the profound wisdom that is encapsulated in the words of the Master.
Lord Jesus, we are coming close to experience your Passion 2009.
Help us to realize the things we need to surrender / to die to / to let go of
so that we can experience New Life for us and our country.
Bob Traupman
priest / writer
This is all for now. Hope to see you soon.
Swamps have something to teach us
Lake Charles, LA
Tuesday, March 4, 2009
Dear Friends,
My retreat is in its final day now.
I don’t at all like this swampy wilderness. It’s so bleak, uninspiring; makes me feel depressed. We walk above it on the catwalk. The swamp connotes the stagnation, the stuck-ness of life. I said the other day that sin is stuck-ness. Not growing. Not moving. And one might ask the question: Am I in a swamp? Is my life not going anywhere? Is there no place to get a firm footing?
So, let’s think about that. Where are we stuck in life? Where’s the stagnation?
What do we need to do to paddle our canoe out of the swamp onto the river of life again and start flowing downstream.
And here’s a thought for you: Heaven is down, not up; that is, if you apply the metaphor that life is flowing like a river. Rivers flow down to the sea. The ocean is a symbol for the mystical life, eternal life, the “the Other Side of Silence” as Morton Kelsey calls it in one of my favorite books.
So, figure out what’s needed to get you unstuck and flowing again.
And if it looks like you’ll be stuck for a while (as our economy will be) then . . . well, um, learn to live it / grow with it / find life while we’re waiting / talk with the people we’re stuck with. And most of all, learn how to love the one’s we’re with.
And don’t let the frickin’ mosquitoes get you!
Tomorrow I’ll segue over to the desert and we’ll reflect on the “real deal” of why Jesus spent forty days in the desert.
I’ll be on my way back to Florida after a very fruitful retreat. Thanks for your prayers.
With love,
Bob Traupman
priest / writer
Voices in the wilderness
Friday after Ash Wednesday / February 27, 2009
Lake Charles, Louisiana in a bayou
Dear friends,
(This post was written Friday but is not being published until just now, Monday morning, March 2nd. Lent always begins by inviting us to go into our own wilderness experience with Jesus. Mine began this morning (meaning – Friday.)
I slept well but almost crashed my 65-year-old bones onto the floor, not used to a single bed. I spent time with my Lord as usual this morning. This morning the harp sound on my iphone at 3:33 sounded like it was echoing in a cathedral; I was very hungry about 5 AM, had some cheese and eggs, resonated deeply with an awesome reflection by St. John Chrysostom on prayer, and rested deeply on the Word as I am accustom. (The ancient process of Lection Divina has one savor the sacred text, phrase by phrase, listen to whatever the Spirit wants to say to you in particular and then rest in the word; literally, to fall asleep and let God do his work in you below the level of your consciousness. Indeed, that is how one changes. We surrender to God’s grace and let him do the work of transformation and purification on a very deep level at the core of our being. Thus, if we let go and surrender, if we listen in the silence, the process of transformation becomes easy for us.
I was awakened by the sound of birds greeting the early morning, though the sun had decided not to appear behind the misty clouds that are still now streaming across the sky. My ears were very attuned to the bird-song, actually a little quartet of four distinct species. I wish I would listen to nature’s sounds more often!
With an 8 oz foam too strong coffee, I headed down into the cypress swamp. My mood became quite depressed at the site of decay, of long-dead stumps. (I don’t find this bayou very inspiring; there’s death and decay everywhere, but also I can see tiny buds on the cypress when I looked closely. I became aware of the stillness. And thought of what Jesus must have experienced in that other kind of wilderness, the desert. This morning I am attentive to every sound, the sounds of silence, the voices of the wilderness:
The bees busy on one of the few flowering plants /The squeaky hinge on the gate that invites one to be open to a watery-wilderness experience /The stirring of the trees in the wind / hounds barking a mile away / a train whistle in the distance /my breath as it entered and exited my nostrils/ my pulse against my neck/ the hoot of an owl in the wood next to the bayou/the crack of a twig as I walk / the rustle of leaves underfoot along the bank of the Calisceau. And when I got back to the retreat center, a quadrangle of yellow brick corridors around a stark empty courtyard with one tulip tree already budding in one corner, there is are the voices of the bass and treble wind chimes and the Angelus bell! Oh, how long it’s been since I’ve said the Angelus! Every town and village in the Middle Ages rang out the Angelus bells morning, noon and night. That was a part of Catholic life long forgotten now.
The message of the wilderness for us is exactly that: to tune us into the sounds, the voices in our lives. Each of us are bombarded with so many sounds, conflicting /confusing / crashing sounds that make it difficult for us to hear the soft voices that bear the messages from afar or the cries of a hurting inner-child within.
Jesus went into the desert to sort out those voices. The harsh voices of the world that tempted him to not even realize that there was a Soft Voice behind and beneath them that would be the Voice he chose to listen to and respond all his short life.
So, we too, have learn how to silence the Harsh Voices that still inhabit our soul that prompt us to hate ourselves, demean ourselves, do destructive things so that we can hear the Soft Voices, the gentle voices that affirm and nourish us.
In the desert Jesus discovered that there was one still Soft Voice that he loved to hear, the Voice that he learned to call Abba / Father. Jesus is calling his God: Daddy!
Now that’s the message of the desert, the wilderness experience: to learn how to listen deeply. But that’ a major problem for us. Most of us are so uncomfortable with silence that we get very nervous and anxious when we’re by ourselves. Some people have to have some “white noise” the hum of a fan or refrigerator in order to sleep. There is very little silence in our world today. And that means God is left out of our lives because silence is the language God speaks.
And so bring some silence into your Lent each day. If you can’t find any place more creative – for you guys, the garage, close the bathroom door, put the lid down on the john, turn the water to submerge the blast of the TV in the den. Try to do this every day until Easter. You might at first be fearful of the voices you hear, the voices that emerge from within, the voice of your conscience. But realize Jesus did exactly the same thing in the wilderness.
Lenten is about listening. Open the ears of your mind and heart. Don’t be afraid. You will enter the wilderness – the wild-ness – within you. But you will also find yourself and your inner strength, the real you and the Other who loves you and has been there all the time though you knew it not.
I’ll write more whenever Father Don allows me to. Right now, I’m going to go back to the swamp, which is a wilderness experience I don’t like; it’s quite depressing, let alone inspiring. And those damned mosquitoes! I much preferred the wilderness of the desert experience I had exactly a year ago in the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico.
The Jesus I know and love is the One who had the courage to silence the conflicting harsh voices of the world and his own ego to hear and love and respond to the voice of his heavenly Father. He is beckoning me to do that once again here on this retreat.
I will write again soon. I am eager to share more about the Jesus I know and love but Don says now is not the time!
Monday morning, March 2, 2009 / The First Week of Lent
With love,
Bob Traupman
priest/writer
Change for the better
mission of nombre de dios / st. augustine, florida / (c) 2006 bob traupman. all rights reserved.
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
It’s 6 AM here in Fort Lauderdale on this Ash Wednesday morning. It’s still dark. Shivvy, my 11 year old Chesapeake Bay Retriever devoted companion is still asleep. This is the time of day I love the most. Reflecting. Praying. Studying. Allowing my soul to float out and embrace those I am thinking about and praying for this morning. The only sound is the white noise of Shivvy’s fan. I hate white noise. The silence “sends me” as we used to say in the 70’s. Silence is the language God speaks.
And I’m thinking of you, my readers, and what I want to say about Lent. This is an important time for us Catholics because it’s a time of grace, an opportunity for us to CHANGE what’s necessary in ourselves to live a better life.
Learning how to reflect. For me, reflection is being aware, being conscious of what is happening inside of me and around me is the key to life. The other day I said I think many of us let life happen without directing it, without asking the question WHAT DOES MY LIFE MEAN? What is its purpose? Is it just a series of unrelated happenings?
Eckart Tolle in his best seller The New Earth last spring observes that being conscious is the most important dimension of life. Not what we do or what we achieve.
Lent is a time to reflect on the meaning of our life. To realize that we have an opportunity to make our own meaning.
The key to that is reflection. Look at yourself, look at your day to day life in a mirror. What do you see? What do you like? What needs changing?
Lent is a time to do a little soul improvement. I get irritated with Catholics who think that Lent is about giving up candy. Yeah, self-discipline is important. We’ll get to that when we go visit Jesus in his wilderness-experience.
We’ve got to go deeper.
Last night President Obama called us to that. He has called us to CHANGE. That’s always what life is about. You rock buffs correct me but I think it was Arlo Guthrie who said, “He who isn’t busy being born is busy dying.”
The President called us to rebirth America. And we have to rebirth our Church too. We are very stuck in the church as well. Another word for change is conversion. Conversion is a process by which we root out of ourselves old behavior patterns that don’t work anymore.
That requires self-discipline, which is traditionally a part of the Lenten process. More tomorrow on the need for self-discipline.
The greatest sin of Americans is complacency. On the list of the seven deadly sins, it’s sloth; i.e., laziness, spiritual laziness. And the culprit is our pursuit of the good life. Having the latest tech stuff to make life more entertaining or pleasurable. We go shopping when we feel blue. All the ads are saying, “You deserve this latest gidget; you’ve got to have it.
But we pay a price for our consumer mentality. Consumerism — cajoling, prompting, deceiving people to buy stuff they don’t need is just plain wrong. It is sinful. It has nearly destroyed us as a nation. We’ve got to root it out of our lives — individually and as a nation. I suggest we look at this very carefully this Lent. And it’s sinful for us to buy into that.
We’ve bought a big lie here in America: Material things will make you happy. You’ve got to have Calvin Klein underwear and Polo shirts and a bigger pool than our neighbor’s.
The mega malls are temples to materialism. But we don’t see this because we’re unaware. Capitalism has become as atheistic as Communism. And now we’re paying the price for our wanting more and more (read: GREED) and being satisfied with less and less.
It makes us stuck in a pile of debris of our own making behind a log jam in the river of our life. So stuckness is the sin we need to look at in these times here in America.
Our life is supposed to keep flowing because consciousness keeps flowing. Each moment should be new. Each bend of the river should find us in a quiet wood or hurtling toward some rapids. Yes, sin is being stuck and not even realizing we’re stuck. That’s what addiction is: Being stuck in destructive behaviors. So ask yourself this Ash Wednesday: In what areas of my life am I not growing? Where am I stuck?
The President audaciously called us to hope last night. I was amazed at his ability to inspire and to call us to be our best selves.
But we have to be willing to enter a process of transformation — each of us — for our country to be transformed.
We have to be willing to face up to what’s wrong with us first. What’s wrong with us is our focus on things. We have to change our ways and our economy so that we’re not consuming more and more stuff but instead serving more and more people.
So, let me make a suggestion for our Lenten reflection each evening. Today was I more focused on people and how I can hel them be better persons or power or possessions and how to can manipulate and control people.
Mr. Obama called us to that. He is re-directing our economy toward renewable energy, health care and education.
He is calling us to rebirth America.
This Lent, let us be willing to reflect on our lives so that we can change what is necessary that we get flowing again.
God of our understanding,
we come to you acknowledging that we stray from our true path,
we use people for our own purposes rather than encourage them,
we are rushing around so madly that we don’t stop and think: What’s it all about?
Grant us the grace to walk this Lenten journey of reflection and renewal
so that we are open to the grace you will give us to get unstuck
and enjoy the green pastures and refreshing waters along our life’s journey s you provide them.
Bob Traupman
priest / writer
Tomorrow: The Jesus I know and love.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday.
But what’s this Ashes thing”
We Catholics like symbols. (So does Harry Potter.)
What do ashes mean?
What can they tell us about life? And death? And reality?
When the priest smears ashes on the forehead he says one of two poignant phrases:
REMEMBER, HUMAN, THAT YOU ARE DUST AND UNTO DUST YOU SHALL RETURN,
So are we just dust? Have we made an ash-heap of our life?
Are we sitting in an ash-heap?
Is there nothing but ruin, smoldering embers around us?
If so, do we despair?
Or can we dream of re-building?
Lent is a time of hope when our life goes awry.
It’s a time to TURN AROUND when we realize we’ve reached a dead end.
That’s what the word conversion means. To simply do a U-turn.
Turn around and head in a different direction.
Get going again. But CHANGE, so you don’t
keep on doing the same old thing and expecting different results.
I have a bone to pick with Catholics who show up on Ash Wednesday at get a smudge of ashes on their forehead without the slightest intention of doing what they symbolize: CHANGE.
I invite you to go deeper into the practice of your religion. LIVE IT!
Let transform you from inside out.
Our economy is sitting in ashes right now.
Consumerism and greed have caused this.
And we’re all consuming much to much and many of us are greedy.
We’re all experiencing the effects of this. We’re afraid and worried.
The question is: Do we have the COURAGE TO CHANGE?
So, let’s do Lent well — together.
Tomorrow be ready to walk with him to Jerusalem
and find out who this Jesus is for you.
And what wisdom he has to offer us that will help us to change.
Whether you are Catholic or not, perhaps you will find some wisdom,
some meaning for your life here. Join us as we walk the journey together
as Jesus did — through suffering to death to new and risen life.
Carnival
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
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 on 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 Februrary 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.
But let us be ready to enter the desert on Wednesday with you and discover how desert experiences can cleanse and purify us and make us whole.
Our country is in a desert experience right now.
Give us the wisdom to let us transform us, cleanse of us of all that is not right or just.
Let us enter the desert willingly instead of kicking and screaming or fearful.
We ask you, Lord, to lead the way.
Amen.
Father Bob's Reflections 