Overview:

Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent

A Reflection for Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants.”

Find today’s readings here.

In the German city I live in, the pre-Lent celebrations of Karneval are legendary. Think Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but an entire week long and with lower prices for beer than I have ever seen in the United States. Cologne is known worldwide for its parades, parties and costumes, which everyone, from Catholics and Lutherans to Muslims and even non-religious people, participates in gladly. What began as a way of removing rich foods that could not be consumed for the next 40 days became a cultural phenomenon and a “fifth season” in the city. The days and nights are filled with food, alcohol and music, culminating with the “Rose Monday” parade, a hundreds-of-millions-of-euros affair that lasts hours, with 12,000 paraders and 1.5 million spectators. 

On that Tuesday, what we think of as Mardi Gras, the people of Cologne are hungover from—or still celebrating—the previous day’s festivities. Close to midnight, people gather in squares throughout the city to burn effigies to atone for their sins. 

The leader of the group gives a speech in which he asks the people to identify who is at fault for bad things that happened in the past year. Things like: Whose fault is it that a beer costs three euros at the bar instead of one, that energy prices are higher than last year, that your roommate stole your oat milk or that there are still wars going on? The most important question is: Whose fault is it that we drank too much, ate too much and partied too hard this past week? The people traditionally defend the puppet at first, but soon the answer to all of these is “der Nubbel,” that aforementioned effigy. 

He takes the blame for all our mistakes, acting as a scapegoat for anything that went wrong. In burning him (and shouting “death to the Nubbel” over and over), our sins are forgiven. Every Lent, we can begin anew, because our sins were attached to the Nubbel, whose straw body can be smelled streets away. 

It is a fun way to picture God’s forgiveness of sins (or to skirt around our own faults), even if the thought of a crowd of people carrying candles and shouting death to a puppet feels strange. It serves as a reminder that we must forgive others and burn away our sins and grudges every Lent. Jesus tells Peter in today’s Gospel that he must forgive his brother even 77 times when he has wronged him. Maybe he should have suggested that, along with real forgiveness, a symbolic burning of an effigy would not hurt, too.

Jill Rice is a 2022-23 O’Hare Fellow at America. She is now the SEO and Analytics Associate at America. She graduated from Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus and majored in classical languages and comparative literature.