The Freedom of Mardi Gras’s Leisure

“Fasching—Mardi gras—is certainly not a
Church festival. Yet, on the other hand, it is unthinkable apart from the
Church’s calendar” begins Cardinal Ratzinger’s reflection “Mardi Gras: The Ground
of Our Freedom.”

It is hard
to imagine Mardi Gras as “the ground of our freedom” when it seems rooted in excess
behavior and worldly affairs, where, for some, immoderation is the perfection
of Mardi Gras. When practiced appropriately, Mardi Gras is a feast about
Christian hope.

First,
although not a liturgical feast in itself, its location in the liturgical
calendar points to a truth about humans and the necessity for leisure. Ratzinger
turns to Scripture: “For everything there is a season. . . A time to weep and a
time to laugh, a time to mourn to mourn and a time to dance” (Ecclesiates
3:1ff). The Church’s year provides a rhythm for man and the changes of the
liturgical seasons remind man “of the varied gift of creation.”

Josef
Pieper
comes to mind in how we can take Mardi Gras as a time for leisure:

The
celebration of a feast. . .combines all three elements that also constitute
leisure: first, nonactivity and repose; second, ease and absence of exertion;
third, leave from the everyday functions and work. . . .

At
this point there appears an inevitable consideration that to most people, as I
have frequently experienced, seems quite uncomfortable. Put in a nutshell, it
is this: to celebrate means to proclaim, in a setting different from the
ordinary everyday, our approval of the world as such. Those who do not consider
reality as fundamentally “good” and “in the right order”
are not able to truly celebrate, no more than they are able to “achieve
leisure”. In other words: leisure depends on the pre-condition that we
find the world and our own selves agreeable. And here follows the offensive but
inevitable consequence: the highest conceivable form of approving of the world
as such is found in the worship of God, in the praise of the Creator, in the
liturgy. With this we have finally identified the deepest root of leisure.

Returning
to Ratzinger, we can celebrate Mardi Gras and partake in its leisurely activity
when we reflect on its Christian origins: Mardi Gras, in its merriment and
light-hearted affairs, mocked the pagan gods—represented by demonic masks—who
enslaved us in the fear of death and the harsh elements of life. Mardi Gras,
when understood in its accidental liturgical context, has the potential to
bring us to God, and it does when we think of it as a celebration that foreshadows
our joy at the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, that joy that can say “Death
where is thy sting?” “Only love that is almighty can ground a joy that is free
from anxiety,” says Ratzinger, and on this note can we happily partake in Mardi
Gras celebrations and joyfully enter the penitential season of Lent.