Dear Friends,
You may have noticed that this year, Ash Wednesday (the beginning of the season of Lent), and Valentine’s Day (the secular holiday celebrating LURVE), fall on the same day, this year.
It made me wonder: what does preparing for the mystery of Easter have to do with the celebration of love?
Maybe the life of Valentinus of Rome holds a clue. While there is not a lot of reliable information about “St” Valentine, legends note that he was a priest (and possibly a bishop), and an evangelist, in the third-century church in Rome. This put him at risk, in a time when Christianity was illegal and Christians were persecuted by the Roman empire. In fact, the day we celebrate as his saint day, February 14, is the date of his execution by the Emperor Claudius II, for the crimes of evangelism and refusing to renounce his Christian faith.
He was also a healer, and there are several stories of him healing a blind girl – in one version, the daughter of a judge before whom he was tried, and in another, the daughter of his jailor. It is in one of these stories, that the saint wrote a note to the girl, saying, “from your Valentine”.
But my favourite legend about Valentine, is that he would defy the Emperor’s temporary ban on marriages, by secretly performing Christian weddings. Apparently military-age men were in short supply those days, and there was a custom that newly married men would not be required to join the military for a period of time. So Valentine’s secret weddings would then exempt the grooms from being conscripted into the Roman army, and being sent away to war. The legend adds that in order to remind the men of their vows to their spouse and of God’s love, Valentine would give them hearts cut out of parchment paper.
In the Godly Play telling of the story of St. Valentine, we say that “we remember Valentine because he loved so well, for God.” I suspect it’s no accident that loving so well, for Valentine, involved giving his very life for that love – just like the One he followed and proclaimed. The heart and the cross are interwoven, it turns out.
It is always powerful for me to receive the sign of the cross in ashes on my forehead on Ash Wednesday. Because, as Wendy Claire Barrie writes, “For me, the cross of ashes I receive on my forehead on Ash Wednesday is intimately connected with the cross of oil we receive in the same spot at our baptism. Here’s the heart of it: From Love we come, and to Love we return.” We are beloved, and we are frail, imperfect humans who will one day die and return to the earth and to the one who made us. The heart and the cross are inextricably linked, in the life of Jesus, in the life of St. Valentine, and in our own lives.
I can only hope, and pray, and live, so that when I have returned to dust, returned to God, returned to Love, that I may be remembered for loving well, for God.
Knowing you are gearing up for book studies, discussion groups, special liturgy, and more for this season, you are in my prayers – for strength, sustenance, and deep peace, on the road to Jerusalem.
And, if you’re looking for your own Lenten practice, feel free to join in the following:
Book study of Tod Bolsinger’s “Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Undefined Territory” – joint study of PMRC and CW ministry leaders, six sessions, beginning this Thursday, Feb 15 at 9 am Pacific time, 10 am Mountain time, register here: Book Study: Canoeing Through the Mountains - Feb-March 2024 (jotform.com)
Daring Justice: Uniting in Dialogue and Reflection, begins this Thursday at 1 pm Pacific time, link here: Daring Justice 6 Session Online Course with Jane Dawson — LeaderSHIFT UCCan
Kate Bowler’s Lenten devotional, “Have a Beautiful, Terrible Lent”, link is here: Resources - Kate Bowler
Deep blessings in this hard, holy, life-giving season ahead,
Michelle
