While most people think of Mardi Gras as a large parade in New Orleans, parties, and day drinking, the celebration has a deeper meaning in Catholicism. Rev. Brian Cool, the director of URochester’s chapter of the Catholic Newman Community (Newman), explained the Mardi Gras tradition through a Catholic lens.
Cool described Mardi Gras as “a celebration before we go to the sacred solemn celebration of Lent,” which is a time where Catholics “[act] more intentionally [towards] [their] relationship to God and Christ.” He jokingly admitted that this period of celebration before the transition into a time of seriousness is sort of like a “bachelor party” for Catholics.
Though the northeast’s celebrations of Mardi Gras tend to be more restrained than New Orleans’ famously large celebrations, it is still a “day people [can] get together for dinner and families [can] celebrate with beads.” These beads are found on festive necklaces and, in the South, are often thrown from parade floats into the street.
According to Cool, Mardi Gras is not formally celebrated by the Pope as it “doesn’t have a religious significance — it’s more of a cultural celebration,” and because there are “no religious prayers [during] Mardi Gras.” Despite this, Mardi Gras’ cultural significance still made its way to Newman, which hosted its own celebration.
This past week, Newman hosted a talk with speaker Angela O’Donnell of Fordham University. “This past week we just had a talk … Angela O’Donnell … she introduced our students to Flannery O’Connor’s work, who’s very creative and a different kind of writer. So it kind of fit into the themes of Mardi Gras. There’s a lot of darkness in [O’Connor’s]writings. But also a lot of conversion [and] change in the writing, so it kind of fit nicely,” Cool explained.
In the future, Cool said he hopes to host more Mardi Gras programming.
“We don’t do a lot with Mardi Gras … we had over 50 people come to the talk and dinner, [so] I’m thinking we [have] to be doing this more often.”
