Here we are again, celebrating the rituals of two important holidays on the same day. While Valentine’s Day seems light-hearted and joyful, Ash Wednesday is sorrowful and marked by a remembrance of our deaths. Those who reflect on these days and know the history and symbolism of both can come to realize that both celebrations can be joyful and somber for their own reasons, though, and it can be sort of beautiful that they are observed together. Love makes death meaningful, and vice versa, in so many ways.
Here’s a prayer for this special space we hold today:
St. Valentine,
you who would risk anything and everything to help those you love,
to help them in birth, in death, in love, and in everything else in between,
in essence - in the deepest parts of life,
you had so much love to give, and in return, were,
and still are,
loved so deeply.
On this day may you remind us
that it is these things alone,
birth, death, and love
that are worthy of our work, our hope, our energy, our worries, our attention.
Be with those who in this moment may not feel love
and with those who have so much they cannot handle it all
and with those who are bringing things to life
and with those who are dying.
In this season of Lent, help us in our efforts to tune out the distractions from these things:
our births, our deaths, and our love
- you who lived for and died for your love -
and remind us that the three are, for us, eventually
one in the same.
Amen.
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