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Monday, March 3, 2025
Mardi Gras pre-Lent party: Fat Tuesday
Not Rosary beads! That's tomorrow. Today we want cheap shiny plastic beads. Throw 'em!
Mardi Gras (lit. "Fat Tuesday" or Pancake Day) is a Christian holiday, celebrated mainly by the Catholic variety. It is a popular cultural phenomenon that dates back thousands of years to pagan European spring fertility rites.
Also known as Carnival like the cruise line, Carnaval in Brazil, and Karneval in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, it’s celebrated in many countries around the world — mainly those with large Roman Catholic populations — on the day before the religious fasting season of Lent begins.
Brazil (Rio), Italy (Venice), and North America (New Orleans) play host to some of the holiday’s most famous public festivities, drawing tens of thousands of tourists and revelers every year.
Holy ash (bhasma, vibhuti) ash is the sign that adorns the forehead of Hindus (and Catholics at the start of Lent). Used by Shaivites and the others used to mean God appearing as a supreme flame, now reduced to a cross or X. Naturally, this holy symbol was appropriated by the religion of "universalism" (catholic in its original meaning) for world conquest, which went around the planet taking all manner of symbols and customs, depositing them in Rome, putting them on display in the Vatican as a sign of worldwide conquest, and then celebrating them and imposing them on others like patriarchal and strictly hierarchal religion. India is also the source of the Holy Rosary (rudraksha), the 108 or 54 wooden bead mala used by meditators doing japa (repetition of a God's name, or mantra recitation, or a prayer to steady the mind). templesinindiainfo.com
Mardi Gras is traditionally celebrated on “Fat Tuesday,” the Tuesday before holy Ash Wednesday (the day Catholics get tilakas (forehead ashes) like good Hindus, and the start of Lent, when we fast and get tempted by Satan like Saint Issa (Jesus) did that time in the desert. So if we fast and behave well, the Devil will come to tempt us like he did in the Judean desert.
In many areas, however, Mardi Gras has evolved into a week-long festival of excess and debauchery.
Mardi Gras 2025 will fall on Tuesday.
That's March 4th this year, which is Gina Marie's birthday, when she marches fourth along with everyone else because she didn't march first, second, third, or so on.
Mardi Gras is a tradition that dates back thousands of years to pagan celebrations of spring and fertility, including the raucous Roman festivals of Saturnalia and Lupercalia.
When missionary Christianity arrived in Rome, religious leaders decided to appropriate and co-op these popular local pagan traditions into their new imperial faith, an easier task than trying to abolish them altogether.
If the authorities tried that, they would have to deal with religious revolts, Bacchanalian backlashes, violent uprisings, and widespread scofflaw celebrations alongside destruction of churches as seen in Norwegian black metal vandalism. It would be like trying to put an end to American tailgate parties and post-game riots and football hooliganism in the U.S.
As a result, the excess and debauchery of the Mardi Gras season became a prelude to Lent, the 40 days of fasting and penance (atonement for sin) between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.
Along with Christianity, Mardi Gras spread from Rome to other European countries, including France, Germany, Spain, and England. More
Associated Press (video), March 3, 2025; History.com edited by recovering Catholics who became Buddhists at Wisdom Quarterly
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