Hearts, ashes and the upcoming journey of Lent — starting March 1
Last week we celebrated Saint Valentine’s Day, also known simply as Valentine’s Day, when our hearts of humankind are opened among us in a special way, full to bursting with love in all its aspects, notably between romantic lovers and yet also in highest agape charitable potential towards even the strangers and enemies in life.
As an additional personal note, it was on Valentine’s Day 2000 that this writer’s mother, Margie Quintana Fernandez, passed away and so taken as a sign that other aspects of love can continue even through eternity.
And in six days’ time on March 1will come Ash Wednesday — the beginning of Lent 2017 — when perhaps two billion Christians in the world will be marked with burnt palm ashes on their foreheads with the shape of a cross as a sign of humility, mortality and of repentance for sin and the wrongs that humankind perpetrates among itself and against the ancient covenants that were made between us and the creator and author of life.
Thus will begin the 40-day season of Lent, and so by the close proximity of the day of the heart to that of Ash Wednesday, those in the world who will observe the Lenten season this year may from the outset be especially fortified and disposed toward that spiritual pilgrimage which by faith and tradition leads to and then culminates with the Holy Week of the passion, the death on the cross, and the resurrection of the one who is believed to be the Christ, the Messiah, the Most High.
Many humble and open-hearted people will be making the spiritual journey through Lent 2017, an arduous path through the pitfalls, the real and symbolic minefields, the war-drone-filled skies, the vicious agendas of the leaders of nations in the world, believing that this year’s Lenten pilgrimage will yet make a positive difference as part of a thousands’ years’ spiritual odyssey through the interminable heartless wastelands that certain others have made of this world which is unique in the vast universe.
Here in the country of el nórte, Lent has traditionally meant dedicating special time and effort for reflection, prayer, prescribed fasting, penance, reconciliation and also as a time for extraordinary acts of charity and alms-giving, and for spiritual and corporal acts of mercy towards others, including strangers and even enemies (if anyone has enemies).
In el nórte, Lenten liturgies are unique and meaningful, often based on and drawing from the Spanish heritage and language here and other characteristic cultural and historic roots; and also in certain ways incorporating indigenous Native American spirituality, as well as natural and seasonal elements.
As Lent 2017 now comes, the world at large is yet beset with tribulations, outrageous and gratuitous violence between peoples and nations, with always yet another conflict on the horizon, and always with the cynical killing and sacrifice of thousands and millions of people and especially the most innocent and powerless, to a primordial, implacable, and inimical entity that has been at horrible odds against humanity for ages and that often works from within the people themselves, tearing out and consuming even the hearts of humankind.
But even in the midst of this titanic conflict, which by now has assumed a sophisticated and technological guise that seemingly can move at the speed of light in its lethality, it is also the time for the heart of humankind to triumph in this deadly wilderness.
Now in Lent 2017, from el nórte and elsewhere, this pilgrimage can realize and bring the heart’s triumph. It can be the time for the greatest lovers in the world to raise us all up, to overcome the blandishments and bloody illusions of the world, to transcend and overcome what has possessed humankind.
It can be the time of the greatest valentine, the sacred heart of the Most High, for the peace and charitable order, in which the lesser things are burned away; and it can be the time for all to hear amongst us all that greatest of all phrases: “I love you!”
