Tag Archives: Ash Wednesday

Valentines and Ashes

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Fr. James DiLuzio’s Meditation for Lent

Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day coalesce on the calendar this year. With our Catholic sensibilities, and in the spirit of penance and renewal both of which ground us in love, this confluence of a holy day and one with popular, secular appeal must give us pause.

Shakespeare, for example, mingled concepts of both love and death in Sonnet 116: 

“Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.”

In the 19th century, Lord Byron authored a poem about grieving an unrequited love in the context of his mortality:

“And when convulsive throes denied my breath, The faintest utterance to my fading thought, To thee—to thee—e’en in the gasp of death My spirit turned, oh! oftener than it ought.”

More importantly, recall the biblical book of poetry entitled The Song of Songs:

“Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; For Love is strong as Death, longing is fierce as Sheol. Its arrows are arrows of fire, flames of the divine.”

Does not Cupid’s arrows pierce us to a kind of death? Dying to self, we are reborn with love for another for whom we are willing to sacrifice all. Of course, romantic love can fill us with self-absorption, but it is the Saint Valentine-inspired love that we are exploring here. As we eschew the romantic notions of the secular holiday, we find its religious source of inherent value. Valentine is the story of the martyrdom of not one, not two, but more than likely three persons named Valentine–each death in a different decade of the Roman Empire’s Christian persecution.[1] These men chose to die for Love of Christ and the Church, to accept death so that others might live. This is an imitation of Christ, who willingly confronted the falsehood of society and culture, its lies, and fears—both religious and secular—trusting that his death would lead him to his glorified exaltation on the Cross. Indeed, the CROSS revealed that sacrifice for Love of God, for what is True, liberates people to heavenly realities even as we live and love and die in this world. Ash Wednesday’s urging that we humbly forbear in charitable giving, fasting, and prayer is, in fact, a kind of death, a “little martyrdom” an invitation to daily sacrifices that prove Ash Wednesday / Valentine’s Day’s juxtaposition is not incongruent at all.

Let’s look at a corollary of our faith found in Music and Art. Richard Wagner’s operas Der fliegende Holländer, Tristan und Isolde, and especially the last scene of his epic Ring of the Nibelungen entitled Gotterdammerung, dramatize a philosophy that we can only experience the fullness of love in an apotheosis—a glorification of love’s essence when it culminates in and through death. This insight implies Love’s perfection is heaven’s achievement, that God accomplishes its fulfillment in Christ’s resurrection from the dead offered to all. God’s extraordinary love in Christ offers us, because of Jesus’ humanity the assurance that the Holy Spirit weaves all human love with its heavenly potential and will bring us into eternal life. Thus, every loving experience we have on earth, be it for a beloved person, or through the daily sacrifices we make to build up the kingdom of God, is meant to culminate in heaven. This is Christianity’s promise: every moment of Grace is everlasting. By God’s design, Grace incarnates love in us to bring us to our ultimate communion with the Saints and with God whose Love is all in all.

The Church marks us with Ashes in the Sign of the Cross, revealing to the world that Christianity does not fear death, nor does it fear confessing our sins, admitting our wrongs. The Paschal Mystery empowers us to let death’s reality humble us and renew our consciousness that all are dependent upon God and God’s mercy, deepening our love of God and neighbor. When we die to sin, we rise to LOVE, tenderness, kindness, patience, and charity–the kind of life experiences that confirm God’s presence in the world, strengthening our belief that everyone belongs, and everything is interconnected. Yes, heavenly realities permeate the earth, justifying the belief in eternal life!

Our Catholic Faith engages us in a “re-creation,” compelling us to die to the devil’s deceptions, and self-serving celebrity, and rise to a better occasion in pursuit and cultivation of a “new heaven, and a new earth?” (Rev. 21:1) Not for nothing does that phrase from the Book of Revelation become explicit in Jesus who invites us to love with a generosity of spirit, engaging us in acts of self-sacrifice that will bring us to an ultimate existence of mutual beneficence. In his humanity, Christ allowed himself to be dependent upon God completely, emptying himself to love and love alone. So, too, must we acknowledge our dependence upon God, and because our lives are not our own, love becomes our only choice. Valentines and Ashes make it clear just how indispensable it is that humanity dies to the illusions of our self-importance as individuals, as family, and as a nation, by dying and rising with the Saints who incarnate, in imitation of Christ, the words in John’s Gospel 12: 24

“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”  What wondrous love is this?

[1]From Valentine’s Day – Wikiwand: “Numerous early Christian martyrs were named Valentine.[17] The Valentines honored on February 14 are Valentine of Rome (Valentinus presb. m. Romae) and Valentine of Terni (Valentinus ep. Interamnensis m. Romae).[18] Valentine of Rome was a priest in Rome who was martyred in 269 and was added to the calendar of saints by Pope Gelasius I in 496 and was buried on the Via Flaminia. The relics of St. Valentine were kept in the Church and Catacombs of San Valentino in Rome, which “remained an important pilgrim site throughout the Middle Ages until the relics of St. Valentine were transferred to the church of Santa Prassede during the pontificate of Nicholas IV [1288 – 1292]”.[19][20] The flower-crowned skull of Saint Valentine is exhibited in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome. Other relics are found at Whitefriars in Dublin, Ireland.[21]

Valentine of Terni became bishop of Interamna (now Terni, in central Italy) and is said to have been martyred during the persecution under Emperor Aurelian in 273. He is buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different location from Valentine of Rome. His relics are at the Basilica of Saint Valentine in Terni (Basilica di San Valentino). Professor Jack B. Oruch of the University of Kansas notes that “abstracts of the acts of the two saints were in nearly every church and monastery of Europe.”[22] A relic claimed to be Saint Valentine of Terni’s head was preserved in the abbey of New Minster, Winchester, and venerated.[23]

The Catholic Encyclopedia speaks of a third saint named Valentine who was mentioned in early martyrologies under date of February 14. He was martyred in Africa with a number of companions, but nothing more is known about him.[24] “

ASH WEDNESDAY

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by Fr. James DiLuzio C.S.P.

 

 

Ash Wednesday is the second most popular church day throughout the year–second only to Christmas. “Why?”   Because this day, these rituals expose what everyone knows yet tries to avoid or pretends to forget: Death is inevitable.  Death comes for all — no matter our faith, our politics, our ethnicity or culture. Death reminds us of our common humanity.

 

Ultimately, acknowledging DEATH is the FREEDOM to put our lives, our worries, our anxieties, our prejudices, our fears into proper perspective. To live our lives well, with dignity, morality and charity, we need to be reminded of DEATH. Yes, we need to be conscious of DEATH to be more fully alive.

 

In its opposition to LIFE, to joyful existence, to loving fully, SIN is also death. It is as universally ubiquitous as death — no matter our faith, our politics, our ethnicity or culture, SIN is in evidence. And thus, SIN ALSO reminds us of our common humanity.

 

Acknowledging SIN is also freedom.  When we admit, we are wrong we free ourselves from pride, from having to make excuses, from pretending we’re perfect when we know we are not. Sin exposes our delusions that we are above and beyond the common folk, that we are somehow superior specimens in contrast took our competitors, our classmates, our friends—or, dare we acknowledge, the many ways we may be better than some of our family members. Yes, sin makes evident we are more like everybody else – a truth we don’t often like to admit.

 

Yet, we know that Confessing our sins Is Freedom. The truth we all are sinners frees us from oppressive guilts and insecurities that chip away at our self-esteem– no matter the pride or false bravado we project to others. Identifying our sins frees us from the burdens of hypocrisies, and offers HOPE for change, for growth, for transformation.  Blessed are the meek and humble, indeed, for when we get honest, we get humble and it is humility that strengthens our belief in the God of Jesus Christ, that His Holy Spirit is within us and present and at work in our world.

 

That is the reason we arrived here today.  Drawn to the Church, to renew our commitment to Catholic Christianity in part for the ways it acknowledges the power of signs and symbols.  So, we put ashes on our foreheads, publicly witnessing to THESE FACTS:

1.                 Death is reality

2.                We are sinners,

3.                And that all are dependent on the MERCY OF GOD in whom we live and move and have our being.

 

In addition to these ashes on our foreheads, we return to the Mass which includes the Confession of sin and the Hope and Realities of the WORD and EUCHARIST.  We return to fortify our relationship with Jesus as our Christ and to improve our relationship with others.   That is perfect freedom. This is HOPE INCARNATE.

 

Our RECOMMITMENT TO THESE TRUTHS of OUR Christian Faith invite people of all religions to consider and articulate how their respective faiths and lives witness to a Merciful God.  When this happens, we shed light on to the same realities that death exposes: our common humanity and the need for God.

 

If asked today by others ” Why are wearing ashes on your forehead?” answer plainly and with confidence:  “there’s value in admitting our wrongs and believing in the Loving and Merciful God Jesus revealed.”  This can –and should — and WILL– make a difference. It will change the ways we see ourselves and the ways we treat others daily. This entire Lenten season strives to imprint this truth on our bodies and souls: LORD, JESUS CHRIST, SON OF THE LIVING GOD, HAVE MERCY ON US SINNERS. Making this our continual prayer Is our Freedom and our Hope.

 

Here’s an example of the difference CHRISTIAN Faith can make in our lives:

 

I invite you to imagine you are back in grade school– 3rd or 4th grades– you are 8, 9 or 10. You’ve had a bad day and, on that day, your faith was no consolation to you.  You forgot Jesus was with you, that you could turn to GOD for consolation.  So instead, you turned to another kid on the playground, the one with a dirty shirt, who rarely combed his or her hair, and you picked on him. You teased her unmercifully. Name calling, ethnic slurs and brutality ensue and you left the playground angrier than before.

 

On arriving home, your parent or guardian asked “What was the matter?” You tell what you did. Now that parent or guardian may or may not have been present to Jesus at that moment. If not, if he/she forgot that we are all sinners AND temples of the Holy Spirit equally. So, that parent or guardian screamed, “Go to your room and get out of my sight. I’m disgusted with you.”   And, if that was their response, in retrospect, we can forgive them for it.  After all, we were not in touch with Christ ourselves on that day.  But if they were –ah what a difference!

 

If in a more prayerful mood, our parent or guardian would ask what caused us to act that way.  They would have reminded us that we all make bad choices, hurt ourselves and others but in faith we can turn to God whose mercy inspires us to admit our wrongs and do something about them.   They may have invited us to pray over what happened and discuss how we could put things right.  They would have invited us to look at the choices before us – we could perpetuate the hurt, the guilt, or make changes for the better.  Perhaps the love and mercy they showed us motivated us to phone that other kid and say we were sorry and say that we wanted to make it up to him.  Perhaps we went to his or her house and apologized in person, inviting them to play a game with us or we offered to help with homework.  If that was in your childhood experiences, that would have been an experience of GOD.

 

If this or something like it happened to you as a young person, I am here to assure you that that day was one of the best days of your young life. If it didn’t happen, if your parent or guardian condemned you and did not help you so something about it, if you kept your wrongdoing to yourself and perpetuated it because you felt guilty and ashamed, if you indulged your anger even further, FEAR NOT. For today, with Ashes on your forehead, you can change what you would do TODAY—you can act differently NOW—with anyone you may have hurt or who has hurt you.  You can appropriate the gifts of your Confirmation now: the courage to speak the truth with mercy, with patience and kindness for yourselves and for others because we are all going to die. You can DIE to the Past and be present to God in Jesus Christ right NOW and let God’s tender mercy fill you with grace.  That is the Freedom of Ash Wednesday; the Courage of Ash Wednesday; the Truth of Ash Wednesday and what this season of LENT encourages us to embrace.