Faith Meets Love: Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday in the same day

The start of Lent (Ash Wednesday) coincides with Valentine's Day this year. Although Catholic authorities are not granting any special dispensations, a spokesperson for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops suggests that the two observances complement each other well - report USA Today.

Ash Wednesday, signaling the beginning of the 40-day period of Lent, has arrived. This year, it's somewhat unusual and quite uncommon.

To observe the day, Christians engage in fasting or abstaining from specific foods and participate in mass. According to Kim Mandelkow, director of the Office for Worship at the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, and Father Martin Schlag, a professor and the chair of Catholic Social Thought at The University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, the masses held on this day are typically among the most attended, as they previously informed Nexstar.

Despite how unusual it might seem, Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day coinciding on a Wednesday isn't as rare as one might think. Actually, it hasn't been too long since the last occurrence of this event.

According to The Hill, we last experienced this overlap in 2018, a particularly noteworthy year since Easter also fell on April Fools’ Day. Before 2018, the last time Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day were on the same day was in 1945. Prior occurrences were in 1923 and 1934.

The name Valentine's Day derives from the name of St. Valentine, whose liturgical commemoration in the Catholic Church is celebrated precisely on February 14 and is associated with the beautiful, romantic legend of Valentine and his beloved. It is for this reason that we celebrate the aforementioned day as a festival of love and affection.

Legendary accounts of St. Valentine state that he was a priest of Rome, who was imprisoned for helping persecuted Christians, and then sentenced to death and executed in 269.Tradition may also be associated with another saint - called St. Valentine of Terni, who was murdered during the persecution in 273.It is also very possible that this is one and the same person, whose story was simply distorted. It is not known whether the cult traveled from the capital of the empire to a neighboring city or vice versa.

Source: USA Today, The Hill