St. Valentine's and Lent
Preached 2/14/2021 at SouthWest UU in N. Royalton OH
By Rev. Meg Mathieson
Happy Valentines Day!
Today we remember the great St Valentine and all of the important contributions that he made to society… no I’m just kidding. Nobody knows who St. Valentine was. Do you?
The story goes that St. Valentine was in prison around the year 270, for disobeying a royal decree against clergy performing marriages. While in jail, St. Valentine became close with a guard, to whom he wrote love notes signed “Your Valentine.”
In reality, nobody knows who this man was and the story is not likely true. Valentine was not an unusual name in ancient Rome, we aren’t really sure exactly who we are celebrating. In fact, St. Valentine was officially removed from the Roman calendar in 1969 because of a lack of reliable information about him.
But the name and the idea - the urge to celebrate love - that has endured. Valentine’s day, or another day celebrating love, is practiced all over the world.
Isn’t that beautiful? When you think about it, that for no reason other than we want to, humans take a day every year just to celebrate love. Last week we spoke about love in the form of the Greek word agape. Agape love, according to CS Lewis is a perfect, fulfilling, divine love. The love that all humans yearn for from the moment we are born.
This need for love is so basic. We are taught in middle school biology class that all living things have certain needs for survival: water, a source of energy, space to move and grow, and for humans and other species as well, love is a basic need for survival. Each of us needs it desperately and constantly, like water or air.
Commercially, Valentine’s Day often focuses on romantic love, but this is a day when we take a moment to recognize the joyous truth that each one of us is loved, and that each one of us loves.
Whoever you are, wherever you are in the world right now, you, here with all of us in this virtual space, you are loved. Maybe not in the way that you would prefer or by a specific person you want, maybe you are loved imperfectly, but if you are here today with us, I guarantee that you are loved.
What does love even mean? If I say the word enough times does it begin to sound strange and start to lose its meaning? Love. Love. Love. What even is love?
Rumi said “Love is the whole thing. We are only pieces.”
Lao Tzu said Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
The Christian Bible tells us “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
We all love love, even the very most cynical of us, even if we won’t admit it.
And so I find it interesting that with all of this abundance of love, we find ourselves on the edge of the Christian season of Lent, a season of austerity, a season of introspection and lonely wandering. Most of us won’t celebrate Lent per se, but we may enjoy what comes before Ash Wednesday, that most dour of holidays: Fat Tuesday!
When I was a small child, my family lived in New Orleans. Some of my first memories include the joy of Mardi Gras, with its colors, lights, masks, feathers, and beads. In the city of New Orleans, Mardi Gras is not just one party, but is in fact many, many parties held all over the city throughout the week before Lent. Some of these parties are debauched, bacchanalian events, but many are strictly family-friendly.
I remember peering out the window in high anticipation, looking for those colorful floats to glide down our street. I remember crowds of laughing strangers and oh, all the beads! And all of this joy is tinged with a defiant spirit as we know we are about to enter into the severity of Lent.
The severity of Lent, for those who are not familiar, is based on the Catholic and later on enforced by the Calvinistic idea that we are all terrible sinners, we can’t help it, we were born sinful, and we must feel very, very bad about it until Jesus comes to save us.
Every year, folks act out this sort-of play: We celebrate as much as we can until it is time to be dour. Some traditions take Lent so seriously that there can be no celebrating at all during Lent. No birthdays, no weddings. No candy, no fun, no sex!
But we are a free people who do not believe in original sin. We are a people who have our cake and eat it too. We can enjoy the party without having to go into a mournful cloister afterward.
Except. Last year, almost a year ago, the severity of Lent was enforced upon us all, regardless of consent, by COVID. The plague that came upon us separated us, isolated us, ravaged us and spared some, but not all of us. We are not the same people who sat poised before Mardi Gras last year.
We are not the same. The year 2020 did something to us. It hurt us and changed us. It closed our physical doors and tried to damage our finances. It broke our hearts. It forced us to slow down, in some cases to come to a full stop.
And in that stillness, and in that quiet, we found each other. In our pain, we rediscovered that we need one another more than we ever knew. In our isolation, we’ve reached out and found new ways of being together, we discovered connections that we never knew or realized before.
We are a free people. We are a people of love and of resilience. We will have our cake, and we will eat it, even if we have to order it through Instacart! We are a people of joy and of strength, and on this day when we celebrate love, when we think of St. Valentine, we can remember that St. Valentine, the myth goes, is the patron saint of love, but he is also a patron saint of plagues.
Imagine this holy energy, the saint as it were or perhaps the mysterious holy energy of love, is also who you are supposed to turn to for comfort from plagues. We don’t know why, your guess is as good as mine, or really as good as the Pope’s for all we know about St. Valentine. So isn’t it fitting, today to turn to this holy energy that exists out in the universe, but also deep within each one of us. The divine spirit of love and Valentines, to also ask for safety, peace, and above all, healing from the virus that is ravaging our world.
Preached 2/14/2021 at SouthWest UU in N. Royalton OH
By Rev. Meg Mathieson
Happy Valentines Day!
Today we remember the great St Valentine and all of the important contributions that he made to society… no I’m just kidding. Nobody knows who St. Valentine was. Do you?
The story goes that St. Valentine was in prison around the year 270, for disobeying a royal decree against clergy performing marriages. While in jail, St. Valentine became close with a guard, to whom he wrote love notes signed “Your Valentine.”
In reality, nobody knows who this man was and the story is not likely true. Valentine was not an unusual name in ancient Rome, we aren’t really sure exactly who we are celebrating. In fact, St. Valentine was officially removed from the Roman calendar in 1969 because of a lack of reliable information about him.
But the name and the idea - the urge to celebrate love - that has endured. Valentine’s day, or another day celebrating love, is practiced all over the world.
Isn’t that beautiful? When you think about it, that for no reason other than we want to, humans take a day every year just to celebrate love. Last week we spoke about love in the form of the Greek word agape. Agape love, according to CS Lewis is a perfect, fulfilling, divine love. The love that all humans yearn for from the moment we are born.
This need for love is so basic. We are taught in middle school biology class that all living things have certain needs for survival: water, a source of energy, space to move and grow, and for humans and other species as well, love is a basic need for survival. Each of us needs it desperately and constantly, like water or air.
Commercially, Valentine’s Day often focuses on romantic love, but this is a day when we take a moment to recognize the joyous truth that each one of us is loved, and that each one of us loves.
Whoever you are, wherever you are in the world right now, you, here with all of us in this virtual space, you are loved. Maybe not in the way that you would prefer or by a specific person you want, maybe you are loved imperfectly, but if you are here today with us, I guarantee that you are loved.
What does love even mean? If I say the word enough times does it begin to sound strange and start to lose its meaning? Love. Love. Love. What even is love?
Rumi said “Love is the whole thing. We are only pieces.”
Lao Tzu said Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
The Christian Bible tells us “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
We all love love, even the very most cynical of us, even if we won’t admit it.
And so I find it interesting that with all of this abundance of love, we find ourselves on the edge of the Christian season of Lent, a season of austerity, a season of introspection and lonely wandering. Most of us won’t celebrate Lent per se, but we may enjoy what comes before Ash Wednesday, that most dour of holidays: Fat Tuesday!
When I was a small child, my family lived in New Orleans. Some of my first memories include the joy of Mardi Gras, with its colors, lights, masks, feathers, and beads. In the city of New Orleans, Mardi Gras is not just one party, but is in fact many, many parties held all over the city throughout the week before Lent. Some of these parties are debauched, bacchanalian events, but many are strictly family-friendly.
I remember peering out the window in high anticipation, looking for those colorful floats to glide down our street. I remember crowds of laughing strangers and oh, all the beads! And all of this joy is tinged with a defiant spirit as we know we are about to enter into the severity of Lent.
The severity of Lent, for those who are not familiar, is based on the Catholic and later on enforced by the Calvinistic idea that we are all terrible sinners, we can’t help it, we were born sinful, and we must feel very, very bad about it until Jesus comes to save us.
Every year, folks act out this sort-of play: We celebrate as much as we can until it is time to be dour. Some traditions take Lent so seriously that there can be no celebrating at all during Lent. No birthdays, no weddings. No candy, no fun, no sex!
But we are a free people who do not believe in original sin. We are a people who have our cake and eat it too. We can enjoy the party without having to go into a mournful cloister afterward.
Except. Last year, almost a year ago, the severity of Lent was enforced upon us all, regardless of consent, by COVID. The plague that came upon us separated us, isolated us, ravaged us and spared some, but not all of us. We are not the same people who sat poised before Mardi Gras last year.
We are not the same. The year 2020 did something to us. It hurt us and changed us. It closed our physical doors and tried to damage our finances. It broke our hearts. It forced us to slow down, in some cases to come to a full stop.
And in that stillness, and in that quiet, we found each other. In our pain, we rediscovered that we need one another more than we ever knew. In our isolation, we’ve reached out and found new ways of being together, we discovered connections that we never knew or realized before.
We are a free people. We are a people of love and of resilience. We will have our cake, and we will eat it, even if we have to order it through Instacart! We are a people of joy and of strength, and on this day when we celebrate love, when we think of St. Valentine, we can remember that St. Valentine, the myth goes, is the patron saint of love, but he is also a patron saint of plagues.
Imagine this holy energy, the saint as it were or perhaps the mysterious holy energy of love, is also who you are supposed to turn to for comfort from plagues. We don’t know why, your guess is as good as mine, or really as good as the Pope’s for all we know about St. Valentine. So isn’t it fitting, today to turn to this holy energy that exists out in the universe, but also deep within each one of us. The divine spirit of love and Valentines, to also ask for safety, peace, and above all, healing from the virus that is ravaging our world.