Eugene Diamond spent Tuesday morning dipping strawberries into chocolate at his household’s candy store in a small city exterior Kansas City. It was the day earlier than Valentine’s Day, and all issues chocolate have been in excessive demand.
For Mr. Diamond, a practising Catholic, one other deadline was additionally looming: This yr, Valentine’s Day occurs to fall on Ash Wednesday, typically dedicated to penitence and fasting. Starting that day, Mr. Diamond, his spouse and eight kids can be giving up sweets till Easter, which falls this yr on March 31.
Mr. Diamond, 39, taste-tested the sweets on the store on Tuesday to organize. “I’ve got to try these today because I’m not going to have a chance to try them tomorrow,” he mentioned.
Ash Wednesday is the primary day of Lent, a season marked by sacrifice and solemnity. At church providers throughout the nation, clergy members will smudge crosses on parishioners’ foreheads, murmuring, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
The day is supposed to function a reminder of human mortality, the beginning of a season that contrasts with and culminates within the festivity of Easter. Practicing Catholics forgo meat on Ash Wednesday, and the church additionally asks individuals aged 18 to 59 to eat only one full meal, plus two smaller ones “that together are not equal to a full meal.”
That makes it a tricky match with Valentine’s Day, a celebration of romantic love typically marked with wealthy meals, wine and sweet.
For Catholics and others who observe the Christian liturgical calendar, the juxtaposition presents one thing of a dilemma. Across the nation, clergy members and their flocks are determining methods to have their molten chocolate cake and eat it, too — simply not all on the identical day.
The two holidays fell on the identical day in 2018, and can achieve this once more in 2029. After that, Catholics, Episcopalians and others can be away from the unusual overlap till the yr 2170, some liturgical consultants mentioned. (Ash Wednesday is pegged to Easter, a “movable feast” whose date is decided by the lunar calendar.)
“Valentine’s Day has a mood of celebratory indulgence, and Ash Wednesday has a much more solemn mood,” mentioned Gabrielle Girgis, 33, a practising Catholic and postdoctoral fellow on the Ethics and Public Policy Center who lives in South Bend, Ind.
Ms. Girgis’s older kids go to a Catholic college that may rejoice Valentine’s Day within the classroom a day early to keep away from the battle. Her household will go to Mass and have a easy soup supper on Wednesday. On Thursday, she and her husband will rejoice Valentine’s Day at Jesús Latin Grill and Tequila Bar, a Latin American restaurant.
Online, Catholics and others had enjoyable with the juxtaposition.
“Valentine, I’d like to take you out for a small meal that, when combined with another small meal, doesn’t exceed your large meal,” mentioned one extensively shared message on social media.
“You can’t spell Valentine’s without Lent,” others identified.
In Austin, the Rev. Noah Stansbury, an Episcopal priest who serves college students on the University of Texas, ordered customized sweet hearts that learn “DUST 2 DUST,” “LIFE IS SHORT” and “UR SO LOVED.” He mentioned he would cross them out on Wednesday at an “ashes to go” station on campus, providing passers-by a fast prayer and the customary cross of ashes on their foreheads.
“It’s a way to change the story a little bit, to point to the core message that life is short and we know that,” Mr. Stansbury mentioned. “This is a reminder that if you want to change the way you’re living, God loves you enough to help you with that.”
He obtained the concept for the sweet from his pal Jay Hulme, a poet who wrote on social media that “people will be going about their valentine’s days, being all cute and loving, and clergy are gonna be out on the streets in black robes with pots of ash like ‘DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!’”
Some Catholic clergy members are reminding their flocks that within the church calendar, Ash Wednesday clearly trumps Valentine’s Day, which has a few of its origins in honoring a third-century saint however is now basically a secular vacation.
In St. Augustine, Fla., Bishop Erik Pohlmeier was amongst those that inspired {couples} in his diocese to rejoice Valentine’s Day a day early this yr. That would have put the celebration on Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, a day historically marked by an enormous pancake supper and different excessive and indulgent indulgences on the night time earlier than fasting and sobriety take over for Lent. As Shakespeare’s Falstaff might need put it: Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we bear in mind our demise.
But Bishop Pohlmeier didn’t see the spirit of Valentine’s Day as inherently at odds with the message of Lent.
In the season resulting in Easter, “we recognize in our faith that God himself chose to come to us in this totally self-giving way,” he mentioned. “Human love is meant to be an expression of that kind of love.”
He identified that there was extra drama in Catholic circles when St. Patrick’s Day fell on a Friday in Lent final yr, prompting some bishops to grant particular dispensations for consuming meat on a vacation recognized for corned beef.
Outside Kansas City, Mr. Diamond, who additionally works as a guide for nonprofit organizations, deliberate to attend Mass together with his household on Wednesday. But on Tuesday night time, he and his spouse have been heading to a brewery hop organized by School of Love, a ministry for Catholic {couples} supported by the Archdiocese of Kansas City. It was billed as a Valentine’s date night time, however scheduled for the thirteenth out of deference to Ash Wednesday.
“It is somewhat complicated to do the event and try to take a bunch of things that don’t seem like they go together and try to make it work,” mentioned Mike Dennihan, who based School of Love together with his spouse, Kristi Dennihan. He famous that each beer and sweets can be out there for many who can be giving up both, or each, beginning the subsequent day.
Elsewhere in Kansas City, the Chiefs ready to rejoice their Super Bowl victory with a usually beer-soaked parade and rally downtown on Wednesday.
The staff’s kicker, Harrison Butker, who speaks typically about his Catholic religion, mentioned that he can be attending Mass within the morning together with his spouse and kids. Though he’ll take part within the parade, he added in an e mail to The New York Times, “I won’t be celebrating in the usual way with food and drink since it’s a day of fasting as well as abstinence from meat.”
For Mr. Butker, the trade-off is price it.
“Just like there is no Super Bowl without sacrifice, there is no Resurrection without our Lord’s sacrifice,” he wrote. “This will be tough, but I have to remember that if I want to celebrate our Lord’s Resurrection on Easter I have to participate in his suffering during Lent.”
Source: www.nytimes.com