Lent is for lovers

With all the secular focus on valentine's day going on in America right now most non-Catholic Christians are organizing their thoughts around the idea of love... what it means, what it is, what it isn't, and how to live a life filled with true love. For many people, it's a time to focus on marriage and family life. This is done as a contrast to the messages of sex and sensuality sent out by the secular world in an attempt to entice people to a deeper consumerism on February 14 and around it. Valentine's day is a money maker, but it is also a day most people perceive as a promise-- a vision of hope. After all, who doesn't want to be loved and love someone? It's what we are made for.

Every valentine's day I read pages and pages of status updates and tweets that vary in range from woefully depressed and borderline suicidal to ecstatic, all based on the person's emotional responses to the treatment they receive on Valentine's Day. No matter which way I look at it, it is always a big deal in the eyes of my peers, which is ironic since in our family we don't actually celebrate it! Most of these statuses and tweets demonstrate a general consumption with feelings... the carnal, human response to valentine's day is to respond with extraordinary joy if we are shown special attentions and with misery if we are ignored-- or worse, rejected.

What the world doesn't tell you is that Valentine's Day is a relatively unnoticed feast day in the Catholic Church celebrating a saint who suffered a bloody martyrdom for the glory of Jesus Christ. Unless Catholics have a particular devotion to St Valentine, you won't see us doing anything particularly special that day besides mention him in our morning and evening prayers. If we do, it's usually because we are grasping at ways to sanctify the secular mania we see around us-- looking for ways to make holiness out of those pink candy hearts and chocolate covered strawberries, to find meaning in the messages of the promises of sex and love that pass before us this time of year.

Looking at the martyrdom of St. Valentine, though, usually gets missed-- and yet there is so much there to glean. Because what the church is REALLY telling us at this time is not to write gushing love letters to each other and spend lavish amounts on each other's vain imaginings, but to look deep, deep inside at our OWN selfishness and pride.... the things which prevent us from being better expressions of love in the world. It's lent.

Lent comes every year in the forty days before we celebrate Easter. Although it begins at slightly different times in the eastern churches and in the west, and is observed in slightly different ways, one thing is certain: our lives will be consumed, for the next forty days, not with ourselves but with

prayer, fasting, and almsgiving

These are the basic tenets of our faith, and we are told in scripture that when we practice them we are "blessed" and will find "lasting joy."
And yet for most practicing Catholics, lent is the most challenging time of year. We willfully take on practices which are uncomfortable for us. There have been years where I committed to befriending people I couldn't stand, or staying away from foods that I absolutely loved. There have been years where I stopped expressing myself in areas I had become used to letting myself go completely, or when I decided to begin a prayer, fasting, or almsgiving regimen that physically cost me. (in sleep, or money, or pride.... things I hold dear.)

There are various lenten traditions, but the general rule is to pray more, to fast and abstain, especially on wednesday and friday, to make stations of the cross (expect blogs about them soon!) and to give more money than is comfortable for the duration of the forty days. Most people begin a strict regimen or rule of life to help them on their journey.

We do these things in the hope that we can begin to master ourselves and let the Holy Spirit take the reigns. They make the difference between us and the rest of the world--- they make us holy.
Like Saint Valentine, we are called to give ALL for the cause of Christ, but very few answer that call.

For those who do-- the joy and blessedness of Easter when it arrives, beginning with one single flame of hope in the cold, damp darkness of the empty church-- is absolutely tangible.
Today, as many of us take the first step of the difficult lenten journey by coming forward to receive ashes on our foreheads with the words "remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return," echoing through the stillness in our hearts, may we all find the strength to reject the wasted lusts and saccharine sentiments of the secular world and press forward into the glory of the paschal mystery where we will find the meaning of True Love.