Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day

Ash Wednesday... and Valentine's Day

Ash Wednesday, the day that starts the Lenten Season of Christendom falls on February 13, 2013.  

It is a movable feast and can occur in the first week of February.  This is one of the earliest Ash Wednesdays that I can recall and I feel that it just descended on us.  It sneaked on us a few weeks after Christmas, another great feast, and the start of the year.  It falls on the day before Valentine's Day celebrated with lovely dinners, flowers and gifts for women and men of all ages with countless "I love you" enough to make one feel heady and dazed! 

With this in mind, let's take a few moments and talk about Ash Wednesday.

Jesus spent 40 days of fasting in the desert, before starting his public ministry.  We now use this 40 days as the days of Lent prior to Easter Sunday, without counting Sundays of the Lenten season.  Ash Wednesday starts these forty days.

Ash Wednesday derives its name from the practice of marking the foreheads of believers with the cross as sign of mourning and repentance. 

The priest, deacon or lay minister performs this ritual while saying any of these scriptural verses.

Remember that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.

—Genesis 3:19

Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.

—Mark 1:15

Ash Wednesday can be a ritual that we adhere to without really paying attention to what we should do to prepare ourselves for Easter Sunday.  It is however within our control to use Ash Wednesday as the start of our journey with Jesus.

In the Catholic Church Ash Wednesday is observed with fasting, abstinence and repentance.  Fasting (one full meal for the day) and abstinence (abstain from meat) are easy as these are both physical in nature. We can also fast and abstain from our most loved worldly pleasures like smoking, alcohol, chocolates, Facebook, parties, etc..

Repentance however being spiritual in nature is harder.  It needs soul searching, admitting our transgressions and making a firm commitment to reform or change our sinful way of life.  We need the grace of God to achieve repentance. It requires a covenant with God which may be easily broken as we fall to temptation and sin. Yet we have to keep on trying to attain true repentance and tune our ears to the Church's call for holiness.  It is what God wants us to achieve in our lifetime.

Aside from fasting, abstinence and repentance we can make commitments to a higher level of love for prayer, scripture, holy readings, lives of saints and almsgiving. 

Prayer is the best way of communicating with Jesus.  It allows us to establish a real and better relationship with Him. Prayers said in His presence in the Blessed Sacrament are particularly very powerful.  Praying the Holy Rosary where we reflect on the life of Jesus is a good way to improve our prayer life during these 40 days. Of particular interest in this season is our praying the Stations of the Cross where we meditate and pray on the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus.

Scriptural and holy readings increase our understanding of the Bible, and allow us to share Jesus more effectively.  This also enables us to defend our faith with love and compassion for those outside of our Catholic faith.  One can also use a 40-day devotional to enhance our Lenten journey.

The lives of saints should serve us our examples.  They have led lives that are pleasing to God and have been specially blessed for us to emulate.  There are thousands to choose from, including our very own St. Pedro Calungsod, San Lorenzo Ruiz or our blesseds like Pope John Paul II.  We can also look at the lives of Mother Theresa, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Ignatius de Loyola, St. Jose Maria Escriva, St. Isaac Joques, St. Monica, St. Augustine and many, many more.

Almsgiving is giving to charity whether it is to an organized institution or the downtrodden in the streets.  Giving of ourselves to those who have less in life translates into love for Jesus who particularly loved children, the sick and the hungry.

All of these special activities express our love for Jesus and our commitment to have a loving and continuing relationship with Him.  This transcends love as we know it, allowing us to have a love that is human connected with that which is divine.  Our love expressed in this manner will inevitably overflow with love that we can share with family, friends and strangers with more meaning and depth than we can show on Valentine's Day.

We are called to have breakfast, lunch or dinner on Ash Wednesday.  The royal feast of the Body and Blood of Christ will be our main course as we commemorate Ash Wednesday and start our own 40-days with Jesus.

Happy Ash Wednesday!

"to the greater glory of God"