CARNIVALE; FROM 6th JANUARY TO ASH WEDNESDAY

 CARNIVALE

FROM 6th JANUARY TO ASH WEDNESDAY

Maria Von Trapp (1) says this about the two liturgical periods of abstinence – Advent and Lent:

“St Catherine closes the door of the dance hall until the three Holy Kings throw it wide open again,” is a saying in Catholic countries. This means that with the feast of St Catherine of Alexandria (November 25) the Church enters the ‘closed time.’ In these weeks, good [Catholics] are not allowed to attend public dances and are not supposed to have big festive wedding celebrations….

To make up for these two periods of abstinence from dancing and merrymaking, there is sandwiched in between a time that is, on the contrary, even dedicated to dancing and feasting of any kind. In Austria, these weeks are called Fashching. In Latin countries they are known by the name of Carnevale (translated as ‘Meat, farewell!’) As we know one main feature of fasting is usually abstinence from meat.

Here in the United States, we have come across the word ‘carnival’ almost exclusively in connection with Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans, so that people have the idea that carnival is celebrated only on the day before Ash Wednesday, (Mardi Gras or ‘Fat Tuesday’). This however is not so. Carnivale is a season extending over several weeks. …it always begins on January 6 and ends at midnight before Ash Wednesday….

It is a pity that the Reformation did away not only with most of the sacraments and all of the sacramentals, but also, unfortunately, with the very breath of the Mystical Body-that wonderful, eternal rhythm of high and low tide that makes up the year of the Church: times of waiting alternating with times of fulfilment, the lean weeks of Lent with the feasts of Easter and Pentecost, times of mourning with seasons of rejoicing. Modern man has lost track of this. Deep down in the human heart, however, is embedded the craving to celebrate and, in a dumb, way, the other craving to abstain, perhaps to atone. In general, these cravings are no longer directed in seasonal channels, as they are for the Catholic…So modern man one day-any day-gets up and says, ‘Let’s celebrate!’ And without any warrant, he decrees that his town from now on will have a festival on, let’s say August 18; and as he can dance and eat and drink on any day between January 1 and December 31, the most he will experience will be a ‘good time’. But he will never be able to ‘celebrate a feast.’...

It should be our noble right and duty to bring up our children in such a way that they become conscious of the high and low tide, that they learn that there is ‘a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance’ (Eccles, 3:4). The rhythm of nature as it manifests itself in the four seasons, in day and night, in the individual’s heartbeat and breathing-this rhythm we should learn to recognise and treat with more reverence…….

[Carnivale] is a period set aside for us to ‘let off steam,’ to ‘have a good time’. And for this we need company. Therefore Carnivale is most obviously the season for parties and get-togethers… A time to be social, to give and receive invitations to special parties. It is the time to celebrate together as a parish group, perhaps once every week, perhaps on a Sunday afternoon.

Maria Von Trapp encourages us to sing together ; “But not the superficial mediocre hits of the juke-boxes, short-lived like the fly; let us rather find it our business to find gay songs among the good old folk songs.” She also exhorts us to indulge in dancing – “Let us think of the wonderful entertainment at a parish party if people were asked to contribute a folk dance from the country their family came from-of course, in the national costume!"

The authors of “The Bad Catholics Guide to Good Living” (1) set out a rather interesting song for this period, providing its origins as follows:

“Carne Vale!

“This traditional Lenten lament was penned in ecclesiastical Latin by St Hildegard of Bingen and originally sung polyphonically as part of the Office of Vespers on the Vigil of Ash Wednesday by the contemplative nuns of her convent in Rupertsberg, Germany. It later formed the basis for a popular ballad.

Bye bye meat

Bye bye beef and pork

Hello, tofu spork

I think I’m gonna hurl…

Bye bye goose

Bye bye lamb and veal

Hello veggie meal

That tastes like chamomile

Farewell Chateaubriand.”

Maria Von Trapp gives us a recipe for

FASCHINGSKRAPFEN

(Jam doughnut)

The idea being that Carnivale is a period of eating fatty foods, all of which have to be out of the house at Lent.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups milk

1 ½ cups sugar

1 cake yeast

4 eggs

½ cup water

¼ cup lard

6 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

Scald the milk and allow to cool. Dissolve the yeast in warm water (test with the inside of your arm to make sure it is skin temperature). Add ½ cup flour. Mix thoroughly. Add this to the milk with a little of the sugar. Then add 3 cups of flour, sifted. Let rise, preferably overnight. Beat the eggs well and add the lard and the rest of the sugar. Mix well. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a stiff dough. Let rise again. Turn out on a floured board and roll to ¼ inch thickness. Cut out and let the doughnuts rise to double their bulk. Fill them with apricot jam. Then fry in deep fat (vegetable oil is lightest) at 360 degrees for 3-4 minutes, turning as they fry. Drain on absorbent paper.

(1) Maria Von Trapp, Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family, Sophia Institute Press, 1955/2018, at pp. 73-74.

(2) John Zmirak and Denise Matychowiak, Cross road, 2005, at p. 7, where the footnote states: “Okay, strictly speaking, none of this is true.”

(3) Maria Von Trapp, ibid.