Feb. 14 will be a bit of a strange one this year: It’s both Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day.
A lot is being made of these two seemingly polar opposite commemorations coinciding. After all, the logic goes, what could be more of a romantic buzzkill than remembering that we are dust and to dust we shall return?
The sense is that Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday aren’t only about completely different things, but the two holidays are incompatible. You can’t fully observe both, so pick one or the other: love or ashes.
But while the vibes of the holiday and the holy day are certainly different, there are indeed some deeper connections worth pondering. In fact, we can discover some illuminating connections between Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day that can help enrich our celebration of both — and correct some deficient understandings of romance and penance in the process.
In other words, we can see how love and ashes actually belong together.
Ash Wednesday helps us see that romance is penitential (at least in part). The ashes we receive are a sign of our contrition and humility, and a recognition of our need for God’s grace in our lives — including our love lives. Romance doesn’t get left out of the mystery of redemption.
Romantic relationships, and marriage in particular, are incredible goods, but they stand in need of divine assistance to reach their true potential. In fact, if romance is not aided by God and incorporated into his divine plan, it’s just dust — just like we are, apart from his love and sanctifying grace. Lent can be an important time to acknowledge our shortcomings in our romantic relationships and, with God’s grace, to amend our lives to become more self-giving.
At the same time, Valentine’s Day can help us see that penitence is romantic, meaning that it is not disconnected from the mystery of love. The penitential spirit that imbues all of Lent — giving things up and expressing our contrition — isn’t about masochism or self-hatred. Instead, we deny ourselves good things and recognize our limitations so we can become freer to love others more fully — God, ultimately, but also our significant other. Lent is all about self-sacrifice for the sake of the beloved — what could be more romantic than that?
In fact, St. Valentine himself — a priest who was martyred for, among other things, celebrating illegal Christian weddings in ancient Rome — can be a compelling companion for us this Lenten season. His witness reminds us that the “little deaths” of Lent should all be undertaken in the name of love — earthly and divine.
But what does this mean about how we can celebrate both Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day together this year?
First off, following the Church’s prescriptions of fasting (no feasting) and abstinence (no meat) on Feb. 14 doesn’t need to come at the expense of a celebration of true love. Because love always seeks the good of the other, participating in these Ash Wednesday penances with your sweetheart is more romantic than splurging on a candlelit steak dinner.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt to be intentional. You can still treat your beau or belle to one full Ash Wednesday meal — or one of the “two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal.” Or perhaps make a date night out of serving at a local soup kitchen, as part of your Lenten almsgiving.
G.K. Chesterton once remarked that “an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.” This seems to apply to this year’s unusual Feb. 14. May yours be full of both penance and romance.
Liedl, a Twin Cities resident, is a senior editor of the National Catholic Register and a graduate student in theology at The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul.
