I love a good holiday twofer. Wednesday marks both SAINT Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday, which I imagine makes for a really morose date night.
SAINT Valentine’s Day
Let’s keep the Saint in Saint Valentine’s Day, shall we? Because my boy didn’t get beheaded just for you lot to eat steaks and bang.
I’ve briefly discussed Saint Valentine before. Saint Valentine was a 3rd century priest or bishop who supposedly ministered to persecuted Christians in the Roman Empire. He was arrested and he refused to renounce his faith, so was promptly killed outside the Flaminian Gate on February 14, 269. He may have given out little paper hearts to remind people of Christ’s love. He may have signed his notes “Your Valentine.” He may have a lot of things.
Like many saints, the hagiography is a little fuzzy. This figure may have been a conflation of several people and elements were almost certainly apocryphal. Valentinus/Valentine was actually a pretty common name at the time, so that might be a factor in the haziness.
So why did this saint’s feast become an important calendar event?
Many scholars point to the influence of Lupercalia, a Roman lovefest that falls February 13-15th (which has its roots in an ancient Greek festival). Eventually, Chaucer tied together the idea of romantic love, birds (just read the post, idek) and Saint Valentine together in a poem. Shakespeare, Charles d’Orleans and John Donne all famously referred to Saint Valentine and Saint Valentine’s Day in relation to romance, hearts, love and birds (so many birds), so the connection was pretty much solidified in Europe. People looking for an excuse to celebrate love latched on to the idea, and it grew into an unignorable holiday.
Ash Wednesday
I love this tradition. I’ve been on both sides of the forehead schmutz. Wearing the ashes all day feels weirdly conspicuous and kinda frustrating because you have to explain it a million times and you honestly just keep hoping it will finally sweat its way off because it feels weird to wash it off and you’re not really supposed to but plenty of people do, so should you? Then there’s the flip side. Not knowing what Ash Wednesday even is – let alone being aware of the date – can be incredibly awkward when you point out that someone has a smear of something on their face and they just stone-faced reply, “I know.” ?!? What? WHAT??
The first day of Lent is literally marked by these ashes. Burnt palm leaves from the previous year’s Palm Sunday service get rubbed into the shape of a cross onto your forehead and you are either told “Repent, and believe in the gospel,” or the morbid, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Yeesh.
Why? An ancient Hebrew custom saw people dressing in sackcloth and dusting oneself with ashes to show their humility and penitence before God. Lent commemorates the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert, fasting and resisting temptation. So the ashes represent that person’s commitment to the self-deprivation of Lent.
When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem for Passover, palm leaves were thrown down in his path: a rolling out of the green carpet, if you will. This was three days before his crucifixion. So burning the palm leaves from the prior year’s Palm Sunday service is a reminder that Jesus was mortal – and so are you.
A morose date night indeed. Because nothin’ says lovin’ like existential dread.