This year, Valentine’s Day falls on Ash Wednesday.
Love and death.
When I was training to be a chaplain, my supervisor told us about some ancient Christian mystics who said to, “Keep death before you at all times.”
That may sound a bit morbid, but the point is that if we keep death before us, we remember our mortality and we can more easily focus on what matters in life. Keeping death before us helps to distinguish between what matters and what doesn’t.
Ash Wednesday
I think the focus on death is why I really love Ash Wednesday.
My church holds a self-guided meditation service for Ash Wednesday. It includes 5 meditation stations involving clay, water, fire, bread, grape juice, and ashes. (If you are interested in this self guided meditation, you can find the documents by clicking here.)
My favorite part of the meditation is when I take ashes on my finger and press the ash on someone’s forehead and say, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, you are marked as God’s beloved child now and forevermore.”
Don’t get me wrong. I like Valentine’s Day, too. Mostly because, like Halloween, it’s another excuse to each chocolate. And, okay, yes, it’s a reminder that love matters.
Love is a verb
And maybe this combination of Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day is a reminder of our mortality and that the most important thing we can do, according to Jesus, is to love. Not so much in a romantic feeling kind of way, although that certainly has its place. But for Jesus and the ancient Jewish people, love was not so much an emotion as it was a verb. Love in Jewish spirituality is an action. You enact love more than you feel love.
St. Valentine’s Civil Disobedience
Not much is known about St. Valentine. Most of the stories surrounding his life are dubious. He lived in the 3rd century AD. Claudius, the Roman Emperor at the time, made it illegal for young people to get married because he wanted young men in the military and he didn’t want them worrying about their wives.
But St. Valentine disobeyed the Emperor’s orders and married young couples in secret. When the Empire found out, they chopped off Valentine’s head.
So, there you have it. Valentine’s Day and death have been connected from the beginning.
So, I love Valentine’s Day for the chocolate, but also for the courage and nonviolent resistance of St. Valentine. He disobeyed unjust laws, and he suffered the consequences for it, which included death. But he was able to risk his life because he knew that love was bigger than death.
Nonviolent civil disobedience, love, and death are at the heart of February 14 this year.
I hope you have a great Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day
