The calendar this year is peculiar: Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday both claimed February 14.
With the combination of pink hearts and black ashes, some on X have taken to calling the strange convergence of holiday and holy day “the original Barbenheimer.”
These two days, however, are not so opposed as might first appear. Ash Wednesday has much to teach us about Valentine’s Day — and the holiday of love points to the true meaning of Ash Wednesday.
This is particularly important, as America is in the midst of a “love crisis.”
According to a 2022 report from Pew Research Center, 63 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 29 describe themselves as single, compared with 34 percent of women in the same age group. In total, nearly one-third of American adults are single. Among single Americans, only 13 percent are seeking a committed romantic relationship (as opposed to casual dates).
What’s going on here?
While the pandemic certainly contributed to a rise of singlehood in the U.S. — with 63 percent of single-but-looking adults saying that the pandemic made dating harder — Covid-19 isn’t the only reason for an increase of single-ness. Among American adults, there is a growing preference for being single.
More than half of single adults are single by their own volition — they say they are not looking for a relationship, or even a casual date. Among those who are intentionally single, 72 percent list that they “just like being single” as a major or minor reason for not dating. Sixty-three percent said they “have more important priorities right now,” and 43 percent said they were “too busy.”
In sum, Americans have gained too great a preference for individualistic independence at the cost of human interdependence.
Valentine’s Day often conjures images of gushy, kitschy romance: bouquets of roses, a candlelit dinner, chocolate in a heart-shaped box, Hallmark cards, etc. While these traditions are sweet, the conjuring of warm and amorous feelings does not offer a window into the true nature of love.
As the indomitable Haley Strack quoted from a rightly oriented romance novel, one ought “to love fiercely, and unselfishly, and with intention.” This kind of self-sacrificial love is what Ash Wednesday teaches us.
The common refrain spoken during the administration of ashes, “From dust you are, to dust you shall return,” comes from Genesis 3:19. In the passage, God curses Adam to a mortal life of labor in response to Adam’s sin of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil — of wanting to be like God. Adam — whom God made out of the dust of the earth — shall return to dust as a punishment for his pride.
And so Ash Wednesday — which begins the season of Lent in the Church, a time of fasting and prayer — reminds mankind of his mortality but also of his pride. The cross of ashes Christians receive on their forehead calls for radical humility, for an emulation of the self-sacrifice Christ displayed on the cross.
Through humility, through sacrificial devotion to the other, true love flourishes. (I won’t get into the story of Saint Valentine here, but let it be known he was radically self-sacrificial, even unto death.)
This Valentine’s Day, only the desire for real love can shift those dire stats on singledom.