Fat Tuesday Is Deeply Catholic

Beyond the Beads: Reclaiming the True Heart of Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, and Carnival

Mardi Gras gets treated like a civic right to behave badly with a liturgical permission slip, and plenty of Catholics smile politely at the noise while quietly hoping Ash Wednesday will come along and disinfect the calendar. Consequently, the modern problem arrives first as a catechetical headache, since a day that once existed to prepare the soul for penance now gets marketed as a roaming street festival where the human person becomes a consumer of glitter, sugar, and impulsive decisions, followed by the predictable social media confessionals that sound like therapy sessions with brass bands in the background.

The confusion grows because people assume the Church “celebrates” the excess, when the older Catholic instinct aimed at something far more sober: finishing the season of ordinary eating, settling accounts with neighbor and conscience, and entering Lent with a cleansed pantry and a clearer heart.

What Fat Tuesday Actually Means

Begin with the name, since language carries memory in its bones. “Mardi Gras” means “Fat Tuesday” in French, and the phrase signals the last day before the fast begins on Ash Wednesday, which in 2026 lands on February 18, the day after today, February 17. Meanwhile, “carnival” often gets explained as a medieval shrug toward indulgence, yet its popular etymology points to carne vale, a farewell to meat, and even that little phrase reveals an entire Christian anthropology in miniature.

The body matters, food matters, discipline matters, and desire needs a governor, since ungoverned desire eventually governs the man. Accordingly, the older Catholic world placed feasting beside fasting as a deliberate rhythm, which is why the day existed at all, since it functioned as a hinge, closing one door and opening another.

Shrove Tuesday deserves its own attention, since it sounds like a word from a dusty English parish register, which, to be fair, it is, and that is part of its charm. “Shrove” comes from the idea of being shriven, meaning confession and absolution, therefore, the day was historically linked to self-examination, repentance, and setting one’s spiritual house in order before Lent.

The pancakes and rich foods served a practical purpose, because households used up eggs, butter, and fats that would sit unused during a strict fast, and yet the domestic practicality served a spiritual logic. In that setting, a pancake became less a trendy brunch aesthetic and more a humble symbol of a family preparing to deny itself together, while praying that the denial would produce joy rather than crankiness disguised as holiness.

The Biblical Rhythm of Feast and Fast

The Church’s genius has always involved taking what is human and training it toward God, which includes appetite. Saint John Chrysostom captured the Church’s medicinal identity with bracing clarity when he described her as a hospital for souls where the burdened find rest and the troubled find relief, since the Church exists to grant remission of sins and to school the heart in thanksgiving.

A proper Fat Tuesday never meant permission to descend into the swamp of licentious behavior, since the whole point was gratitude and preparation, with a clear awareness that joy grows best in a life ordered toward God rather than toward impulse. Catholics historically could enjoy a feast with clean conscience precisely because the feast was framed by repentance, prayer, and a coming fast, which is an arrangement modern culture keeps forgetting, since it enjoys the sugar while refusing the discipline that makes sugar a gift rather than a master.

The Hebrew roots of fasting and feasting bring the whole thing into sharper focus, since Israel’s life with God moved through appointed times that alternated between celebration and affliction of soul. In Leviticus 23, the feasts of the Lord structure the year with holy convocations, therefore, time becomes covenantal rather than chaotic, because God trains His people through seasons rather than through sporadic spiritual moods.

Yom Kippur carries the command to “afflict” oneself, which the tradition has consistently associated with fasting and penitence, and yet that penitential day exists within a calendar filled with feasts, including Passover, Weeks, and Booths. Consequently, covenant life never consisted of one emotional register, since God forms His people through a rhythm that includes rejoicing before Him and then bowing low before Him, which keeps the heart from confusing pleasure with purpose.

Christ and the Wilderness

Scripture refuses the modern caricature that fasting equals gloom and feasting equals freedom, since both can become acts of worship. In Deuteronomy 8, Israel learns that man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord, therefore, appetite becomes a classroom where the soul learns dependence, and food becomes a reminder of gift rather than an idol of control.

The Psalms overflow with thanksgiving at the table, and the prophets repeatedly warn that festivals without conversion become empty noise, which sounds uncomfortably familiar in an age that loves public celebration while avoiding private repentance. Consequently, Mardi Gras makes sense only inside this biblical pattern, since it belongs to a covenant people who understand that the Lord forms us through holy times, holy meals, and holy restraint.

The New Testament intensifies the pattern rather than erasing it. Christ assumes fasting as a given when He teaches, “when you fast,” and He directs it toward the Father who sees in secret (Matthew 6:16–18), therefore, fasting becomes relational rather than performative. Jesus Himself fasts in the wilderness as Israel’s faithful Son, and He answers temptation with Scripture, which shows that hunger can become a battleground where the word of God must rule.

Lent arrives as an annual training ground in union with Christ, and Fat Tuesday, rightly understood, stands as the threshold where a Christian chooses to enter that training with clarity rather than drifting into it half asleep.

Reclaiming the Day

A mild cynicism remains appropriate, since modern Mardi Gras often resembles a liturgical costume worn by a culture that no longer remembers the liturgy. In many places, people shout “let the good times roll” while rolling straight into spiritual amnesia, and then they act surprised when the heart feels thin and restless afterward, as though sin comes with a satisfaction guarantee.

The commercial world loves Lent-adjacent celebrations for the same reason it loves every holiday, since it can sell sugar and spectacle to people who feel a vague hunger for meaning and confuse that hunger with the need for more noise. Catholics who want to live covenant life in a serious way may need to reclaim the older logic, which means enjoying legitimate feasting with gratitude, praying for those who treat the day as an excuse for degradation, and then stepping into Lent with intention.

If Fat Tuesday functions as a farewell to meat, it also functions as a farewell to the illusion that the self can feast endlessly without consequence. Therefore, take the day as an occasion for a real household reset, which includes gratitude, confession where needed, reconciliation where possible, and a concrete plan for prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Consider a family meal that feels festive without turning into a carnival of indulgence, since the point involves receiving God’s gifts with thanksgiving while preparing to surrender comforts for love of Christ. The day can become quietly powerful, since it teaches children and adults alike that joy and discipline belong together, as do celebration and repentance, and that Christian freedom means choosing the good with a steady heart.

Walk Through Lent Together

Lent in 2026 begins immediately after today, and the Church offers the coming weeks as a mercy, a school, and a battlefield, since grace aims at transformation rather than self-improvement aesthetics. Therefore, I want you to join me for a simple daily practice that fits into real life, including busy mornings, crowded schedules, and distracted minds.

Head to avemariaradio.net, click on the slider, and sign up for my daily Lenten mission, a series of free two-minute videos produced together with Ignatius Press and the Catholic Study Bible App, each one designed to help you meditate on the day’s lessons for Lent with clarity and courage.

I also want to place in your hands a free copy of my ebook, Lavished in Love, a day-by-day meditation for the season of Lent published by En Route Media, since many people desire depth and yet need something bite-sized, faithful, and steady enough to carry them through the whole season.

Treat this Fat Tuesday with a sane gratitude, a measured joy, and a covenant mind, and then step across the threshold into Lent with your eyes on Jesus, since the entire rhythm of fasting and feasting reaches its true meaning in Him. Therefore, let’s enjoy this amazing season of Lent together, since the Church does what she has always done, which involves taking wandering hearts and bringing them home through repentance, prayer, sacramental life, and the quiet astonishment of being loved by God more than we ever deserved.