Mardi Gras, also known as Carnivale, is a wild party-like celebration of Christians that takes place prior to the rigorous fasting and penance of the Lenten season.

Mardi Gras symbolizes the world turned upside down, the disarray of the social order: a reflection that God's order is not the order of the world. Its colors are: purple, the royalty & passion of Christ; gold, the power of Christ; green, the hope of the Easter faith.

Lent is a solemn observance of 40 days of prayer, fasting & almsgiving in preparation for the remembrance of Jesus' Passion, Death & Resurrection on Easter Day!

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Come, O Life-giving Creator,
            and rattle the door latch
            of my slumbering heart.
Awaken me as you breathe upon
            a winter-wrapped earth,
            gently calling to life virgin Spring.

Awaken in these fortified days
            of Lenten prayer and discipline
            my youthful dream of holiness.
Call me forth from the prison camp
            of my numerous past defeats
            and my narrow patterns of being
            to make my ordinary life extra-ordinarily alive,
            through the passion of my love.

Show to me during these Lenten days
            how to take the daily things of life
            and by submerging them in the sacred,
            to infuse them with a great love
            for you, O God, and for others.
Guide me to perform simple acts of love and prayer,
            the real works of reform and renewal
            of this overture to the spring of the Spirit.

O Father of Jesus, Mother of Christ,
            help me not to waste
            these precious Lenten days
            of my soul's spiritual springtime.

Edward Hays

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