Angelus News | February 9, 2024 | Vol. 9 No

our gods and abandoning your vain
superstitions?” St. Valentine replied:
“If you but knew the grace of God, you
would turn your mind away from idols
and adore the God who is in heaven.”
Whereupon, St. Valentine was tortured
and beheaded.
That is exactly what we want to do
during Lent: to know the overwhelming
grace of God, to turn our mind
away from idols, and to adore the God
of heaven precisely in order to live in
his friendship. As ashes are placed on
our forehead this Ash Wednesday, the
priest will say to us: “Remember that
you are dust, and to dust you shall
return.”
Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim,
Norway, explained the spiritual significance
of this:
“When I remember I am dust I also
recall that I was destined to be more.
To say, on these terms, that I am dust is
not degrading. It is God who degrades
himself for love, stooping down from
celestial realms to re-shape and re-inspirit
humble matter.”
In other words, those ashes are the
best of valentines.
The perfect valentine
Who doesn’t want to get a valentine?
But we crave a love that surpasses the
A newly engaged couple kisses after a
blessing at the Shrine of St. Valentine
in Dublin in 2019. | CNS/CLODAGH
KILCOYNE, REUTERS
sentimental. We want an ultimate love
… and infinite love. And it has to be
comprised of three things.
It has to be a love that comes to us
as a gift. If instead it is something
we need to “earn,” then it’s nothing
but compensation — not real love.
God loves us because he is good, not
because we are. Ash Wednesday is the
time to begin our begging for this gift.
In the words of the 14th- century mystic
Walter Hilton, “the lover of God is
his friend, not because he has deserved
to be, but because God in his merciful
goodness has made him so by a very
real pact.” Namely, the cross.
Second, it has to be a love that keeps
declaring to us, It is necessary that you
exist! In the short story “Sine, Cosine,
Tangent” by American author Don
DeLillo, the agnostic main character
decides one Ash Wednesday to present
himself for ashes. It becomes for him
an occasion of powerful grace, for
through it he knows himself to be
wanted, chosen:
“I went to the altar rail and knelt, the
priest approached and made his mark,
a splotch of holy ash thumb-printed to
my forehead. Dust you are. …”
The man begins to realize: “My parents
were not Catholic. I didn’t know
what we were. We were eat and sleep.
We were Take Daddy’s Suit to the dry
cleaner.” Yet that sacred impression to
his forehead continues to impress him:
“But the robed priest and the small
grinding action of his thumb implanting
the ash. And unto dust you shall
return. … I didn’t know what this was.
… I wanted the stain to last for days
and weeks.”
And third, the love has to be a love
that is indestructible. However, that
love comes to us through the destruction
of God’s Son on the cross … and
through his resurrection. The reason
we mortify ourselves during Lent is to
predispose ourselves, more and more,
to be able to receive and hold fast to
this indestructible love. For love is
what penance is all about. “Every penance
that increases love is good; any
penance that narrows and preoccupies
the soul is harmful” (Von Balthasar).
Ash Wednesday calls us to recommit
ourselves to our only real priority, especially
by doing away with the doubt
that derails us. St. John of Ávila expresses
it in a prayer we would do well to
offer often this Lent:
“O God who are Love itself, how we
wound you if we do not trust in you
with all our hearts! If, after the favors
you have shown us, and after having
died for us, we do not feel confidence
in you, we must be worse than very
brutes. In the times that we offended
you, you cherished us. You followed
after us when we fled from you. You
drew us to yourself. Please keep us
from ever distrusting you or questioning
whether you do love us and intend
to save us.”
Being a valentine
Let’s start our Lent this Ash Wednesday
giving others a lasting valentine
— the miracle of Divine Love made
possible through the Paschal Mystery:
“The ultimate miracle of Divine
Love is this, that the life of the Risen
Lord is given to us to give to one another.
It is given to us through our own
human loves” (Caryll Houselander).
After all, Lent is for lovers.
Father Peter John Cameron, OP, is
the former editor-in-chief of Magnificat
and the author of 10 books. He is now
engaged in itinerant teaching, giving
parish missions and retreats.
February 9, 2024 • ANGELUS • 25