Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s day???!!!!!!?????

Once upon a time there in ancient Rome there was a priest named Valentine[i].  Through his prayer to Jesus a jailer’s daughter was released from the prison of blindness.   He defied the command of Emperor Claudius II’s ban on wedding bands between Roman soldiers and women.  He was put to death on the Via Flamina and before he died wrote a note to that jailers’ daughter signed “your beloved Valentine”.   Since then, lovers and St. Valentine have gone hand in hand exchanging flowers, chocolates and other assorted tokens of love while making plans for a romantic dinner for two on the day he died.  

However, the Roman Catholic church gave St. Valentine’s feast day to Sts Cyril and Methodius[ii] in 1969   because they couldn’t reliably confirm which St. Valentine (There are 2 possible candidates If St. Valentine existed) was the one martyred on February 14th and the Catholic Church realized the pagan[iii] feast of Lupricalia that celebrated fertility may have had more to do with the holiday than some note about St. Valentine’s love of Jesus he gave to his jailer’s daughter on the way to being executed.  Still the Catholic Church kept St. Valentine on as the patron saint of lovers, epileptics, and beekeepers[v] which is maybe why we refer to our beloved lovers as “Honey”.     

It's also strangely weird that Valentine’s Day falls on the day that marks the midpoint of the shortest month of the year although this year we had to extend February by a day just to make sure mother nature and the solar system kept up with our manmade calendars.  February for some reason seems to have more holidays in it than any other month of the year.   The 2nd of February is Candlemas AKA the 40th day of the Christmas if you are an extremely practicing Roman Catholic but I’d say Punxsutawney Phil[vi] and the media storm at Gobblers Knob has completely obliterated the significance of Jesus’ first visit to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.     Maybe it was a good thing that Abraham Lincoln’s birthday (February 12th) and George Washington’s birthday (February 22nd) got combined into President’s day[vii]  on the 3rd  Monday in February.   For about 40 years now the month of February has been set aside to remind ourselves of the contributions to US history[viii] of people like George Washington Carver[ix] who was a botanist that gave the world the modern peanut and happened to be black.   (Why aren’t we acknowledging contributions to American history, art, science and literature by African Americans the other 11 months of the year?).  Frequently Chinese or at least Chinese Americans[x] down dozens of dumplings dipped in Panda Express orange sauce during the Lunar New Year in February (in this case February 10th, 2024) for good luck.  Some argue Superbowl Sunday (now officially the 2nd Sunday in February) is an unrecognized national holiday honoring those NFL athletes who managed to survive the brutal pro-NFL season with their bodies still intact[xi] to the final game.     And then there is the one holiday I pay the most attention to when it falls in February (which it frequently does) and that’s Fat Tuesday or as they say in New Orleans- Mardi Gras.

Now I’m too broke and too much of a prude to meander my way down to Bourbon St. NOLA to get a bunch of pretty plastic purple, gold, and green beads along with hurricanes for free.    Still, like Brazilians downing their Feijoadas stews, Poles pushing their pącki down their gullets or Brittons flipping flapjacks like they do at IHOP[xii]    I too have my own Fat Tuesday rituals which also begins about 10 or more days before Ash Wednesday.     I know that I am a poster child for the sin of gluttony and I’m pretty sure Satan is eager to get my autograph on it as soon as I get down to him.    If I’m popping open a standard 5.2 oz can of Pringles, I’m popping the entire contents of that can in my stomach in what feels like 5.2 seconds.    Knowing that 370 calories, 22g of fat (6g of which are saturated fat) and 460mg or sodium are pretty poisonous [xiii] to my body that is supposed to be a temple I try and turn Lent into the annual temple remodeling project known as dieting[xiv] .    I’m trying to think the added praying and the added reminder of how I’m going to repeatedly be smoked like a brisket for all eternity will break me of my addiction to junk food. So, I try and give up all of the tasty bad foods I love but really don’t love me in return.   I try and give up cookies, Cocca-Cola, ice cream, potato chips, French fries or any other greasy fried fast food from McDonalds et al.   I probably shouldn’t leave a loophole of Irish soda bread and probably should give up cake too.  

But the one food I do traditionally give up for Lent because I really do love it way too much is of course chocolate.   

Giving up chocolate for Lent is one of those ubiquitous cliches that I’m sure a lot of Catholics/Christians do.    In fact, Catholic Speaker Mathew Kelly emphasizes to not give up chocolate as part of his “Best Lent Ever” program. [xv]     Still, I know that there are days when I love chocolate more than I love Jesus and the $12-$14 of M&M’s candy I usually buy I know should go to help a staving family in a 3rd world country[xvi].   In fact, you could say my need for cheap chocolate is keeping several of those 3rd world families in poverty[xvii] because Mars (maker of my favorite M&M’s) use child labor in Ghana with five-year-olds wielding machetes instead of crayons to get at those coca seeds.    I really need to break this chocolate addition and there have been several Lents where I’ve nobly made it through, only to gorge myself on those colorful pastel M&M’s that is causing a child in Africa to weep somewhere. Never mind the fact they taste the same as the brightly colored M&M’s Mars sells the other 319 days a year.  Still, I do try to give up chocolate and I try and purge myself of all chocolate in my household before the start of Lent so I can at least try not to tempt myself with eating that entire 38 oz party size bag of M&M’s in an afternoon.    Of course, my pre-Lent chocolate purge is processed through my digestive track before my body disposes of it in the porcelain throne which I’m pretty sure isn’t good for my body either. 

So, to get started on my pre-Lent junk food purge on January 31st I asked my Alexa device “Hey when is Ash Wednesday”.    And Alexa promptly told me Ash Wednesday fell on February 14th, 2024.

WHAT?

Ash Wednesday is falling on the day that is synonymous with heart shaped boxes full of decadent chocolate that I’ve eaten half of before I can even begin to ponder Forest Gump’s folksy meme?

To quote my late father-I think God has it in for me-personally.

So, I now have to go from the joy of love to the sorrow of gloom and doom.   Lent is the time we remind ourselves that we are made of dust and to dust we are going to return unless we repent.[xviii]   Lent is a time of mourning, Lent is a time of regretting, Lent is a time where we have to ponder there are things that are greater than just our lust over marshmallow nougat chocolate hearts that might be bad for our actual hearts.   Lent seems like it has nothing to do with the joy of love because it concludes with the passion and death of Jesus on the cross on Good Friday.

And yet, maybe Lent has everything to do with the joy of love after all.

I remember about a decade or more ago a CBS Sunday Morning commentator complained about Valentine’s Day since the day seems to be primarily for couples and a single woman like herself was left out.  She wished Valentine’s Day could be for everyone the way it was when we were children, and everyone exchanged cheap paper valentine’s day cards and maybe a candy heart or two with everyone else in their class.   The idea was the holiday was supposed to be a celebration of the feeling of love not some reason to guilt guys into spending $50 for a dozen roses for their sweethearts because that is what their gals are expecting.   Maybe this year, with it falling on a day of fasting and abstaining, couples will to quote Joel 2:16 “ ….Let the bridegroom quit his room and the bride her chamber” and instead of couples focusing on their couple-hood with gifts from Lover’s Lane will be reminded that this is a season where we must show how much we are to love one another.

Because Jesus loved us that much 1st.

To quote John 15:13 “There is no greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”   

 When we think of it, often the greatest of love stories have a tragic end for part or whole of the couple at the center of the story.  Romeo & Juliet aka the names synonymous with lovers, loved each other so much they rather be dead than live life without the other.   Many a love song like that cheesy Brian Adams “(Everything I Do) I do it for you” song talks about how he would die for his love at the end of the song.     For a more modern take of how someone in love would offer their lives is Bruno Mars’ “Grenade” where the chorus goes-

“I'd catch a grenade for ya
Throw my hand on a blade for ya
I'd jump in front of a train for ya
You know I'd do anything for ya

Oh, oh, I would go through all this pain
Take a bullet straight through my brain
Yes, I would die for ya, baby”

But then comes the kicker of the song

“But you won't do the same”

So, maybe it is appropriate that this year Lent begins on a day when we remind ourselves of how much Jesus loves us to the point, he was willing to die for us and maybe for the rest of us to wonder why we don’t love him the same way.  

Because He really does love each and every one of us.  Personally.


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