Abbot Brendan OSB
For the first time since 1945, Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday coincide. It will only happen once more this century and that will be in 2029. Perhaps this unusual occurrence is provoking us to consider what true love looks like. It certainly takes a bit more than a box of chocolates and a bunch of flowers.
And so, this year, the feast day of our commercial obsession with love and romance is being subverted by a stark reminder that we are dust and to dust we shall return.
In all our relationships, we would do well to remember the brevity of human life. In our relationship with God, Lent can be that hibernation period where we can fall in love all over again. God responds to the sin that keeps us from him by wooing us away from other, lesser gods and back to the real lover of our souls.
The ashes imposed on our foreheads are a sign of our repentance. We are not supposed to display our fasting and repentance in a pious way, but we’re also not supposed to just wash them off.
Those ashes will be a mark and reminder, as deep and personal as any piece of jewellery or bunch of flowers. These ashes show that we are loved, and that our beloved’s commitment to us is constant and true, even when we are not. They show us that divine Love is not just about feelings or sentiments, but about death to everything that hinders it. They say to us, ‘What do you plan to do between the time you receive these ashes and the time you become them?’
This is why we need Ash Wednesday this Valentine’s Day. We will fast from unwarranted judgments about ourselves and about others. We will give up self-hate. We will give up impatience with others. We will give up fear of strangers and hatred of our enemies. We will give food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, shelter to the homeless. We will visit the sick and imprisoned. We will bury the dead with honour. We will give instruction to the ignorant, counsel to the doubting, comfort to the sorrowful, gentle reproof to the erring. We will forgive those who’ve wronged us, and bear with those who trouble and annoy us. We will pray for everyone and everything.
This Ash Wednesday I can decide to make a real gesture of love from the ashes of my life. This is our Lenten programme and unlike Valentine’s Day, it lasts, not one, but forty days.