“Everyone must study his own nature. Some of you can sustain life with less food than others can, and therefore I desire that he who needs more nourishment shall not be obliged to equal others, but that every one shall give his body what it needs for being an efficient servant of the soul. For as we are obliged to be on our guard against superfluous food which injures body and soul alike, thus we must be on the watch against immoderate fasting, and this the more, because the Lord wants conversion and not victims.” – Francis of Assisi
Fat Tuesday usually gets treated like the final “go big or go home” moment before Lent begins. Eat, enjoy, don’t think too hard, and deal with it tomorrow. But the Church has never been that interested in extremes for their own sake, either in indulgence or in discipline.
Saint Francis of Assisi offers a much steadier lens on it: “Everyone must study his own nature… everyone shall give his body what it needs for being an efficient servant of the soul… The Lord wants conversion and not victims.”
That cuts through both sides of the Fat Tuesday mindset. It’s not saying celebration is bad. It’s saying that disorder on either end doesn’t actually help anyone. Overindulgence can dull the soul just as much as extreme fasting can crush the body. Francis is basically reminding us that God isn’t trying to collect dramatic performances. He’s trying to heal and redirect a human life.
So, Fat Tuesday becomes less about “last chance to enjoy things” and more like a quiet question underneath the noise: am I actually free, or just swinging between excess and control without ever becoming steady?
Enjoy the day. Receive it as a gift. But don’t confuse noise for joy, or indulgence for freedom. Tomorrow isn’t a punishment waiting in the shadows. It’s an invitation to clarity, and Fat Tuesday is just the threshold reminding us that the heart matters more than the extremes it drifts toward.