This is the first time in my memory that Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day have fallen on the same date. I am sure that has happened before in my lifetime, but I have no memory of it. A holiday which we often think of as focused on friendship and romantic love seems a rather stark contrast to a day focused on repentance and deeper faith in God. Valentine’s Day is nearly completely secularized in our time, although it originally had a religious background. Cynics have even suggested that it serves the purposes of increasing card manufacturing and candy production. Boyfriends and husbands can be frustrated by trying to figure out what to do for their beloved, and school children fret about getting enough valentines or are embarrassed about the whole event. Ash Wednesday has a clearer purpose. It is not a one-day event, but the beginning of a six-week quest to draw closer to God. It involves a turning toward God and an emphasis on our relationship to the Divine One, prompting repentance and sober reflection. It is the beginning of the journey to Easter, the supreme day in the Christian calendar. It is a time of prayer and meditation, with significant self-reflection. It begins with self-examination and facing the best and the worst in us under the loving mercy of God, but ends in the joy and new life in celebration of the Resurrection on glorious Easter Day. One celebrates friendship and love between human beings and the other, the eternal love of God who created us all.