Farewell to the flesh! Mardi Gras/Carnival - The festival of the wolf


I've been reading about the history and meaning behind Mardi Gras, and have made some very interesting discoveries. For those of you who know nothing about the festival - like myself, until only recently - it's an extremely pagan holiday, derived from an ancient Roman festival called Lupercalia. Lupercalia was a day in which the Romans would honor their pagan god, Lupercus, who is associated with the satyr or faunus, who are associated with satan. The word Lupercus comes from the Latin word Lupus, meaning WOLF.

So the ancient Romans had this huge festival where they worshipped their wolf god with reckless and gluttonous abandon... But according to wikipedia and almost every other source, Mardis Gras is a 'Christian' festival which has to do with Lent and Easter. Hmmmm... How then did it become associated with Christianity and Lent/Easter, you might ask?

Well, when Christianity came to Rome, the dignitaries of the early church decided it would be easier to blend their beliefs to fit in with what the Romans were doing, rather than trying to abolish it. So in the early Roman Christian/Catholic church, Lupercalia eventually became known as 'Fat Tuesday', the day before Ash Wednesday where 'Christians' could essentially get out all their last partying and sinfulness the day before Lent and their 40 days of repentance, which ended on Easter Sunday.

Pretty awful way for the church to handle that situation in hindsight, I'd say...

The details of how Mardis Gras (French for 'Fat Tuesday') came to the US are a little blurry. Some believe it was brought here in 1699 by a French explorer named Sieur d'Iberville, and some believe it started in 1827 by a group of students in New Orleans. But however it started here doesn't really matter. The meaning of the celebration - whether the majority of participants know it or not - remains unchanged from it's Roman heritage.

The day of the celebration changes each year, as it always takes place on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which also changes year to year. This year it happens to fall on a new moon (tomorrow, Feb 21), and as you may know, Israel almost always goes to war on the evening of a new moon.

Mardi Gras is most commonly celebrated throughout the world as 'Carnival'. The origin of the word carnival is Latin for 'FAREWELL TO THE FLESH'.

Could this year's Mardi Gras - the pagan festival of the wolf, a worldwide day of gluttonous debauchery and shameless sin - be the day our Lord Jesus returns to take his true believers home, away from this wicked world? It certainly is a time no one is expecting. A time of partying and worship of worldly idols.

Will we - the watchers and true believers - be saying 'farewell to the flesh' during tomorrow's celebration? I certainly see it as a huge possibility.
Maranatha!

-PiPi