Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. That means Tuesday is Mardi Gras — “Fat Tuesday”; “Mardi” being “Tuesday” in French, and “Gras” being “Fat”. It’s that day when lots of people will have that big party, that grand fling, that the Christian world has traditionally had right before it dives into a month and a half of Lenten austerity. (Never mind that plenty of Mardi Gras partiers have no intention of observing Lent at all, nor even any idea what Lent is.)
But actually, it’s “Fat Mars Day”.
The seven days of the week are linked to the seven “wandering stars”. Here “stars” refers to celestial lights generally. As seen by the unaided eye under dark skies, there are thousands of stars that do not move with respect to one another. These are the stars that comprise the constellations. To take one example, Orion is known as a constellation, and was known in the time of the Old Testament:
He alone stretches out the heavens
and treads upon the back of the sea.
He made the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the constellations of the south [Job 9:8-9].
This is because Orion looks the same year after year, century after century. Its stars hold their positions; they do not wander around.
But seven celestial lights visible to the unaided eye do wander. They travel through the constellations of the Zodiac, such as Libra, Gemini, and Pisces. These lights are the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn (which for the most part share their names with Roman gods and goddesses).
That the days are named for the wandering stars is pretty clear in languages such as Italian — important since the Vatican Observatory headquarters is in Italy, of course! In Italian, Monday is Lunedì (the Moon, as in “lunar”); Tuesday is Martedì (Mars); Wednesday is Mercoledì (Mercury); Thursday is Giovedì (Jupiter, as in “Jovian”); Friday is Venerdì (Venus). Saturday and Sunday are Sabato and Domenica, after the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day; in English these follow Saturn and the Sun. In French the days of the week are, starting from Monday: Lundi, Mardi, Mercredi, Jeudi, Vendredi, Samedi, Dimanche. So, Mardi being “Mars day”, Mardi Gras is “Fat Mars day”.
Now you can imagine for Mardi Gras a Roman god of war who has been fighting less and indulging more, to the point where his “body mass index” is quite a bit above what is healthful — or you can imagine a bloated red planet. Maybe you can bake a Mardi Gras cake decorated to look like the planet Mars, using lots of fatty icing! If you do, send a picture to the V.O.!
