Bishop Mark Seitz led a special service at the El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Food Bank with a message that both Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday actually fit together in celebration.
“We are marking two days that are special for us. Valentine’s Day is more of a secular holiday in which we are invited to let people around us know how much we love them and just to mention that it’s (named after) St. Valentine,” Seitz said in an outdoor service at the food bank.
“But we’re also celebrating Ash Wednesday and I really can say celebrating because while we are thinking about serious things, we are actually celebrating something wonderful. It would be easy to think about these days as being two very separate realities that we are marking on this day in which we express our love for those around us and this day in which we look at how we have wandered from God as we prepare to enter our days in the desert — these 40 days of Lent and preparation.”
“The truth is these feasts go together because we are turning back to God and the fact that we recognize that he loves us. He is merciful and the first lover in the world.”