ASH WEDNESDAY IS THE VALENTINE'S DAY FOR GOD

Most everyone knows what Valentine's Day is all about:  Celebrating Love. 

The main commercial thrust defines this as a holiday celebration of romantic love, yet it can also mean celebrating the love within family bonds such as between father and daughter.  But with Valentine's Day falling on Ash Wednesday this week, this offers the unique opportunity for one to accentuate affection for the greatest love of all:  The Love of God.

Ash Wednesday represents the first day of Lent in the Western Church, occurring 46 days prior to Easter.  It is marked by services of penitence, during which the ashes of burned palms from the preceding year's Palm Sunday are blessed and used by the priest who traces a cross onto the forehead of each worshiper to signify a better appreciation of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Each time the priest draws this, he recites, "Remember, man, that dust art thou, and unto dust thou shalt return".  (Genesis 3:19 KJV)  This commencement of the Lenten period of time leads

Priest traces cross onto parishioner's forehead

believers to devote themselves more fully to an increased self-examination, repentance, prayer, fasting, and self-denial.

While this description of Ash Wednesday may sound more grim and painstaking than anything that resembles Valentine Day's pleasure of love, the whole idea is to demonstrate the beauty of the ultimate sacrificial love reserved solely for God Himself.  All of the above-named practices, themselves true expressions of love, are the combined preparations for not just any death but for a holy one in order to be eternally--and blissfully--joined together with God.

The origin of Ash Wednesday is not biblical, but actually came later in church history.  

The idea for it began with the formation of Lent itself,which was accepted into the beliefs of the Church at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D.  The Council adopted the 40-day duration, beginning on the 4th Sunday of the year, for fasting which became known as Lent.  While repenting, fasting, and focusing on God are  important all year long, this period of time encouraged a more keen rededication of these practices which remains an annual opportunity to this day.

The exact origin of Ash Wednesday itself is unclear, but in 601 A.D. Pope St. Gregory I (the Great) moved the beginning of Lent on the calendar from the 4th Sunday of the year to the day that was to became Ash Wednesday; now 46 days before Easter, this change allowed for 40 days of fasting along with 6 Sundays counting as Feast Days.  This raised the total to  46 days for Lent.  It is believed that Pope Gregory, as found in the earliest existing copies of the Gregorian Sacramentary, then went on to institute the "Day of Ashes" as the onset of Lent.  This later became the Catholic tradition of Ash Wednesday, the ritual of marking the forehead of each worshiper with ashes in the shape of the cross.

There are biblical roots for the actual practice of using dust or ashes to demonstrate regret for sin as found in Esther 4:1 with Mordecai, Job 42:6, Jonah 3:5-6 with the inhabitants of Nineveh, and in  Daniel 9:3-4.  In biblical times, this show of repentance was often followed by fasting.

Repenting (feeling remorse for disappointing God), Fasting (practicing self-denial to build the spiritual strength needed to overcome obstacles to a closer relationship with God), and a greater focus on God (expelling selfishness for the unrivaled exaltation of God), are all Christian acts that fittingly testify to the greatest love of all.  And these practices, as believers well know, carry far more value than the traditional Valentine's Day gifts of chocolates, bouquets, or even diamond jewelry. They are the actions that speak volumes in securing unification with the utmost of all loves.