Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet,
And so are you!
Remember, man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.
For the first time since 1945, Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday fall on the same date. This convergence has produced some humorous comments, as well as some confusion among those who hope to do both observances justice.
Ash Wednesday, of course, marks the first day of the Christian Lent -- the 40 days and nights (excluding Sundays) before Easter, commemorating Jesus's forty-day fast and temptations in the desert. The rigors of Lent have been toned down considerably over the years, so that now it's really just a ritual reminder that we are mortal -- a daub of ashes on the forehead -- and a hopeful looking-forward to Easter -- not a demand that we embrace genuine starvation.
Valentine's Day is a little more complicated. St. Valentine was supposedly a bishop who was beheaded outside Rome on February 14, 269 for refusing to deny his faith. The history is confusing; there may have been several martyrs with the same or similar names. So little is known of his life that the Catholic church removed St. Valentine from his February location on the official church calendar in 1969. Unlike the mythological St. Christopher, however, he is still recognized as having been a real person and a saint.
How this shadowy bishop got tied into hearts and cupids is somewhat shadowy itself. Wikipedia points out that the celebration of "courtly love" flowered in the fourteenth century, and that Geoffrey Chaucer -- he of the long, chatty walk to Canterbury -- seems to have been instrumental in the association of the saint and the pangs of romantic love. In those days, apparently, folks believed that birds mated in mid-February, which tied nicely into the observance of St. Valentine's martyrdom on February 14.
In modern times, Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday generally pass each other like ships in the night, untouched by each other's waves. Having them pop up on the same day seems to have bothered some earnest folks, judging from comments on the internet -- "Does Valentine's Day override the obligation to fast and abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday?" "Ha, surely you jest!" Several American bishops have noted that the last pre-Lenten fling called Mardi Gras occurs on the day before Ash Wednesday, and that this would be a highly appropriate date on which to send valentines, eat chocolate hearts, and pledge to one another undying love.
The following day, then, we could move right along from romantic love to the Greater Love of which romantic love is only a pale -- but hopeful -- reflection on Earth. For romantics, those whose feet remain planted in the fourteenth century and its concept of romantic love, rather than in the more au courant Playboy Philosophy or whatever horrors have succeeded it, this is a satisfying solution. God's love for mankind is reflected on Earth in love between humans, and love of one human for the "pilgrim's soul" in another ideally reminds us of God's love for the souls of men (and women, too, of course).
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
I can think of nothing further, nothing more cosmic, nothing more breath-taking to suggest. The coincidence of the two observances falling on the same date does not suggest that the Second Coming is impending, or that the world is soon to be destroyed by a Great Deluge. The last time it happened -- in 1945 -- was also the last Valentine's Day before the end of World War II, and the beginning of a period of great prosperity. So there's that.
On the other hand, nowadays we have the internet and fake news. So all bets are off. But as I pen this screed, there are only 3½ hours left until the Thursday After Ash Wednesday, when things presumably return to normal. So just hold your breath.
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