 February 1945, Bliealf, Germany. U.S. Soldiers receive the Eucharist at Mass in a bombed out church from the hands of Assistant Division Chaplain Father Sullivan. As some of you might know, this year is the first year since 1945 that Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday have coincided. At first, it might seem that the two celebrations couldn’t be any more different, since Valentine’s Day has become the rather worldly, sentimental, and saccharine carnival of earthly, emotional love, and Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten season, with its somber liturgies, fasting, abstinence from meat, almsgiving, and the like.
Yet, as strange as it might seem, Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday are closer than we might think: both point us beyond that one day, on towards the greatest love that there is.
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April 2018
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