If you happen to follow clergy social media—of which there is a lot—you could not have escaped the fact that Ash Wednesday coincides with Valentine’s Day this year. I can’t escape it personally, either, as my dear husband—who generally does Valentine’s Day very well—will be home alone this year. I’m going to have to make it up to him big time tomorrow, albeit without the chocolate!
Because of this, there are these silly little graphics going around the internet: pictures of candy hearts with sayings like “you are dust,” and “Lent is for lovers.” Then there are the many graphics pointing out that you can’t have the word VaLENTine without Lent in it. Which may be orthographically correct, but it’s not true to the Lunar calendar we base these moveable feasts on. Valentine’s Day very rarely falls during Lent, and almost never on Ash Wednesday. In fact, that coincidence occurs only three times in a century, on average. So I’m going to assume that, this year anyway, St. Valentine is blessing this day, too. We’ll return to him in a moment.
Meanwhile, one of my favorite of the internet Ash Wednesday images is the sooty mark on people’s forehead, in the shape of a heart. Several people at Trinity have asked if I were going to do that. It is tempting, of course, but in many ways utterly redundant. There is no greater symbol of love than the cross of Jesus Christ.
I’m a bit of a traditionalist—like most Episcopalians—so I’ll be offering you standard ash crosses today. Resisting the cultural temptations to freshen up the symbol with hearts or glitter, which some clergy actually do. I don’t judge that: all symbols that remind us of the love of God and the kindness of each other are good ones. But ash specifically reminds us of our mortal nature, and the cross—a reminder that God is sovereign over even death—is the single greatest symbol of love. Not the sweetly sentimental type of love we symbolize with candy or flowers, but the fiercely unyielding type that says by its actions “no one has greater love than this, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Saint Valentine, by all accounts, laid down his life for his friends. There are actually several (although not entirely congruent) accounts of his life. But the legends that have come down to us describe him as a third century priest, who—in defiance of the order of the emperor Claudius, secretly performed Christian weddings. This allowed the husbands to escape conscription into the emperor’s army. The legend also claims that—in order to remind these men of their vows and God’s love—Saint Valentine cut hearts from parchment and gave them to the couples. But this same reverence for Christian marriage also earned Saint Valentine the wrath of the emperor, who had him executed on February 14, 269. “No one has greater love than this, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Today’s symbols of ash and cross recall lives of courage, a courage that sometimes resulted in execution. But whether faithfulness to the Gospel led to happy and peaceful matrimony or martyrdom, it’s important to remember that BOTH are expressions of the love that knows no bounds, and fears not even death. And I’d like to believe that love is also what we seek to express through our traditional Lenten disciplines: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
We can think of these Lenten practices as giving something up for God. But let me suggest that—in the spirit of Saint Valentine—we think of them as giving something over for the love of our neighbor. Is there someone who needs your prayers especially right now? Is there a hurting place in the world that needs your intercession? You don’t have to become a mystic or go to great spiritual heights of prayer for Lent; just commit to pray faithfully for those you love. We need each other’s prayers, now more than ever.
Likewise when you fast or give alms—which I hope that you do—consider how you might do them as expressions of love of neighbor. What might you forego during Lent that someone else really needs right now? If you skip a meal or two, consider also joining with friends to contribute or serve a meal or two at Trinity. With Octavia’s Kitchen, with Alan Fong’s community that serves the family shelters in San Jose, or with Front Door Communities, which will be moving in with Trinity in just a few weeks.
These are practices of love, just as surely as any paper heart or box of chocolates. If doing these practices during Lent causes you to fall more deeply in love with God and your neighbor, then you have treasure in heaven, my friends. Resurrection life is already within you and Easter will come like an old friend. On the other hand, if your Lenten practices they feel like a hair shirt or make you feel dismal, then please do something else. The point of Lent is not to hurt yourself—that is never God’s intention—but to heal the world. The same world that God so loved that he gave his only begotten son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
I’m not expecting any martyrs among us this Lent—I’d certainly prefer that there aren’t any—but in all Christian truthfulness let me remind you that the path of faithfulness does lead to death. Always, whether sooner or later. We are dust, and to dust we shall return. This is our mortal nature. But this is equally true. We are created in love, and to love we shall return. So the one real question for us is the same question that motivated Jesus and Saint Valentine. How are we called to share that love with one another along the way?
