c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) This year, Easter is as early as it can be in Western churches; we’re barely over Christmas and Lent is already upon us.

Just before the Lenten fasting begins, there’s one last chance to celebrate. The customs range from country to country, but whether Mardi Gras in New Orleans or Carnaval in Brazil, it’s one big party until Ash Wednesday.

During Carnaval in Brazil, moneyed aristocrats dress up as commoners, and the poor masquerade as princes. The point is to forget class distinctions, at least for a little while, and party hearty.

That’s not a bad idea. Lent has its many practices, including eating a little less and observing meatless Fridays. The main thing is restraint, and being aware of others.

The reading that comes up on Ash Wednesday in the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours presents eye-opening details. The prophet Isaiah passes on the Lord’s instructions about fasting. The rules are pretty striking: 1) release those bound unjustly; 2) set free the oppressed; 3) share your bread with the hungry; 4) shelter the oppressed and the homeless; 5) clothe the naked; 6) don’t turn your back on your own.

What would happen if we all observed Lent this year that way?

Even better, what would happen if every government of the world gave up its Mardi Gras delights of power and of precedence and sat down in peace to do these things? Perhaps that could cure the political cancers that cause so much suffering in Kenya, Congo and Zimbabwe.

What would happen if Congress stopped its Carnaval of rhetoric, and set about to figure out once and for all a health care policy for everyone, not just the poor but also middle-class baby boomers out of work before their Medicare kicks in?

What would happen, indeed, if corporations took a page from Bill Gates’ book and followed his lead into a world of creative capitalism, using market forces to address the needs of the poorest countries on the planet?

Gates is quite upset that our newest technologies, health care and education bypass the poor. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has $33 billion, from Microsoft and from the market sage Warren Buffett, to aid the poor.

But Gates’ idea is not simply to parachute huge bags of money into lands bereft of funds. What he suggested, in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is for corporations to regard the poor as a market force, and build products and services for them. Gates is convinced that such a system would have “a twin mission: making profits and also improving lives.”

How ever could that work?

Gates suggests that businesses take their best and brightest and put them to work solving problems linked to poverty. In the long run, he says, that will create better market forces for all businesses, as well as help the poor. He goes beyond the idea of micro-loans to help people start businesses. He is asking corporations essentially to find ways to make more customers for themselves.

That would be one substantial switch. In fact, it’s positively Carnaval-esque. Bill Gates, the epitome of American moneyed aristocracy, is suggesting that all captains of industry change hats and understand what it means to be poor. He expects the poor to step up and join in creative capitalism. He is convinced that his idea will someday let the poor _ under their own steam _ eat and dress and live a little better, and not just for Carnaval.

That seems to me one super idea, one grand Lenten resolution. I think Isaiah would agree.

(Phyllis Zagano is senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University and author of several books in Catholic Studies.)

KRE/PH END ZAGANO600 words

A photo of Phyllis Zagano is available via https://religionnews.com.