Mardi Gras
What is really behind its Mask?
What does Mardi Gras mean! In French, Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday. This is a day to gorge and over indulge oneself before the seasonal religious practice of fasting, abstinence and denial. It is not surprising that the symbol for Mardi Gras is the “Bouef Gras”…… The fatten bull.
During the 12 days preceding Mardi Gras, more than 60 parades and hundreds of private parties, dances and masked balls are annually scheduled in the metro area.
Mardi Gras is an Ancient Greek and Roman, Ancient Greeks would sacrifice a goat, cut its hide in to strips and run naked through the fields while their pagan priests lashed them with the goat-hide strips. This was a part of their spring fertility rite to insure a productive harvest for their fields and increase the fertility of their flocks and women. The custom was degenerate even by pagan standards, being a time of sacrifice, lewdness, immorality, drunkenness and revelry and was associated with the worship of the Greek god “Pan”.
Pre-Christ:
Pagan priests accompanied by the idol, shower the crowds with spring flowers, herbs, grain and coins. Both good fortunes, spells, and curses were shouted, including the calls to the idol god to grant favor and blessings.
In The Roman celebration “lupercalia” a fertility festival, the worship of Lupercus involved cross dressing and masquerading to promote sexual orgies.
Who is Pan: Pan”, besides being the Greek god of fields and pastures, was even more closely associated with cattle, flocks and herds than with agriculture. He was a fertility god and therefore always represented as crude, wanton and lustful. He took the form of half goat and half man, having the legs, ears, and horns of a goat (the goat is the ancient symbol of satan), but the torso, arms and face of a man.
Today:
The parade: is a worship of false gods (Greek origin) are worshiped by exalting an image above the assembly.
The celebration of Centaur exalts the same spirit of revelry and wanton abandonment, drunkenness, homosexuality, nudity and brawling all still exist today.
The church: The fixing of Easter allows the unscriptural religious celebration of Lent and ash Wednesday to follow Mardi Gras. Instead of resisting the ways of the pagans.
Lent: The word Lent has an obscure origin, and is probably a corruption of similar terms in ancient Anglo, Saxon, and Germanic languages, all of which referred to spring, new life, and hope. Although it is generally considered to be a time of mourning and repentance, it is also designated as a time of new life and hope because by means of the death of Christ, we receive new life.
The bull is the old testament symbol of Baal. 1st Kings 12:28 —- 19:18 Exodus 32. Baal the bull is symbolic of strength and fertility. God condemns the production and worship of idols.
Steeped in Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman fertility rites. Half of the parades celebrate and honor false gods. The rest promote sex and drunkenness.
What’s behind the mask: “Masks are a way of being anonymous, and if you wear a mask, ‘ you take on a different persona.’ Among the early tribes, men who wore masks were considered crueler toward their enemies than those who did not.
King Cake: In each cake is a small plastic baby. In New Orleans, popular custom holds that whoever receives the slice that contains the baby must purchase the next cake and throw a party.
Krewes: Mardi Gras organizations are non-profit clubs called krewes and many are named after mythological figures such as Aphrodite, Eros, Hermes, Pegasus and Thor. Each krewe is completely autonomous and there is no overall coordinator of Carnival activities. The secrecy with which some of the older krewes cloak themselves is part of the mystique of Mardi Gras. Several do not reveal the theme of the parade until the night of the event, and the identity of their royalty is never publicized.
About a dozen organizations dating from the 19th century use the Carnival ball as the highlight of the debutante season, as daughters of the socially elite members are presented at the city’s Municipal Auditorium.
The Mistick Krewe of Comus coined the term “krewe” in 1857. In ancient mythology, from which many New Orleans krewes derive their names, Comus is the son of the necromancer Circe and reveler Bacchus.
Beads and trinkets: Beads and other trinkets, known as “throws,” have been tossed from floats since as least 1910 — transforming parades into a participatory experience, as spectators beg and scramble for treasure. Beads became part of an exchange ritual involving flashes of bare flesh — a phenomenon that stoked the market for more eye-catching, fancily designed necklaces. The flashing for beads the “primary ritual paradigm or worship of the gods is a form of “ceremonial exchange” that is not simply unstructured hedosm but rather a “ritualized enactment.
Can we claim his lordship and still be involved in this demonized activity? It is the same spirit that has contended against God for the souls of man since we were created. That same spirit, Satan, works to turn man away from Holy God, and towards these false gods.
