Wednesday is Valentine's Day, a widely celebrated holiday to enjoy something romantic and sweet with the person you love. But many Catholics and other Christians throughout Southern California will receive a cross made of ashes on their foreheads that day because it is Ash Wednesday, whose vibe is anything but forgiving.
How are you supposed to reconcile those two observances? Guidance depends on the religious institution you speak to.
In the Catholic Church, Ash Wednesday is intended to remind us of our mortality and the need to reconcile with God. It also marks the beginning of the penitential season of Lent.
On Wednesdays, practicing Catholics fast, abstain from eating meat (every Friday for the next six weeks as well), and choose a favorite food or activity, such as sweets or alcoholic beverages, which they will avoid for 40 days.
Fasting and avoiding meat could hamper some Valentine's Day plans, but religious leaders told the Times that worshipers can still celebrate the day without breaching their Lenten obligations.
When fasting, which in the Catholic Church means having only one full meal and two snacks that do not amount to a full meal, you can have Valentine's Day dinner as a meal, said Dorian Llywelyn, director of Ignatian Spirituality at Loyola Marymount University.
“Ash Wednesday is much more important than Valentine's Day because [the latter] “It is a modern and primarily commercial development,” Llywelyn said.
In the past, religious leaders have issued a dispensation or exemption from certain aspects of Ash Wednesday in order to participate in a cultural celebration. For example, when Ash Wednesday and the Lunar New Year fell on the same day in 2005.
Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles issued a statement saying that those who wished to celebrate the Lunar New Year on that day could fulfill their obligation to fast on Ash Wednesday on Saturday.
However, the archdiocese is not giving parishioners any respite this year.
Valentine's Day is not a cultural holiday, said Father Juan Ochoa of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The original Saint Valentine, a third-century Roman martyr, was honored in the Catholic Church's liturgical calendar until 1969, Ochoa said, when the church gave the Feb. 14 feast day to the Saints. Cyril and Methodius, brothers who are credited with creating the Glagolitic alphabet to transcribe the Scriptures.
Saint Cyril died on February 14, 869, hence his assertion of that date.
Saint Valentine was a Roman priest who married people against their parents' wishes and usually performed secret weddings because the couples loved each other, Ochoa said.
“Valentine's Day is about love and Ash Wednesday is about preparing to celebrate the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, [so] It’s also about love,” he said.
Worship services are also held on Ash Wednesday in Anglican, Lutheran, Episcopal and some Protestant churches.
The Rev. Canon Melissa McCarthy of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles said her church's advice is to collect your ashes and then go celebrate Valentine's Day with the person you love, whoever it may be.
As an alternative to giving up a treat, McCarthy said one possibility could be taking up a new spiritual practice, such as meditation, doing centering prayer or attending a Bible study.
Ash Wednesday has been a holy day of obligation in the Catholic Church, a day of obligatory church attendance, but it is not obligatory in the Episcopal Church.
While many Episcopal Church parishioners participate, McCarthy's hope is that people will also see it as a way to “take stock of where you are in your life, your relationships, and your relationship with God.”
