For a long time now I have been conscious of a deep spiritual power in this festival. It is a spirituality of the marketplace, of the particular, of the here-and-now. This feast day is a sort of Punch-and-Judy show of the human spirit. And I can't help thinking that it fits with the example of our rabbi who ate and drank and made merry with his disciples. Like Christmas, it is a Christianizing of a pagan holiday; Mardi Gras is deeply connected to early earth- and folk-religion. This time of hilarity, like May Day or Midsummer's Eve, brings out the fool in us, the actor who sees life as a work of the imagination.

In New Orleans the festival has taken on very large proportions, beginning at Twelfth Night and offering a long season of merriment day and night: street parades with floats, trinkets being thrown to the crowds by masked revelers, marching bands, and formal balls with courts and pageantry. Liturgically, this celebration is like Hallowe'en, the shadow side of a great opportunity for holiness. But the spirit of rejoicing in this feast is more like a second Christmas, a time for the people, the working classes, to be temporarily set free from cares and obligations. It is a release from the bondage to winter (which though not always cold, can be very rainy and bitter in New Orleans) and a time to cherish friendship and simplicity of heart.

The chief attitude of the holiday is one of peaceful revolution. When the spirit rules, the kingdoms of this world are overturned.

Emilie Griffin in The Chrysostom Society,

STORIES FOR THE CHRISTIAN YEAR, p.51f

POEM: "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love"

by Christopher Marlowe (ca. 1590)

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.

There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

There I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair linèd slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

Thy silver dishes for thy meat
As precious as the gods do eat,
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

POEM: "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd"

by Sir Walter Raleigh

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall,

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten--
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind may move
To live with thee and be thy love.

The capacity for make-believe is part of our childlikeness. It is this talent we may exercise (not often enough) when we pray and when we play. To make believe is to express a hope that things may be more perfect, happier, more glorious, more heavenly, more humorous. Mardi Gras is a moment when we may (if we enter into it fully) remember and act out again our heart's desire.

Ibid., p. 52