Idea for a Valentine’s Ash Wednesday

Quick thought about this year’s St. Valentine’s Ash Wednesday: Why not consecrate this Lent to your marriage?

If you’re already married, what’s the thing you need to be praying, sacrificing, and working on to make your marriage more conformed to God’s plan for your life together?

Maybe this is the year that . . .

• You finally acknowledge you’re in an abusive relationship and take the necessary steps to get yourself to a place of genuine safety.
• You schedule a weekly therapy session — alone or with your spouse — to work through that issue you’ve been hesitant to tackle.
• You resolve to offer up the suffering in your relationship, even though it seems so huge and impossible.
• You give up criticizing your spouse for Lent. Possibly even say something kind every single day.
• The two of you together take up a practice of prayer, study, almsgiving, or ministry, or discern together where God wants to lead you next.
• You focus each day on cherishing each other in profound gratitude for all the beauty and joy that your marriage has given you.

If you’re engaged, how about forty days of prayer, fasting, and preparation for your future marriage?

If you’re widowed or bereaved, how about forty days of uniting yourself with the sorrows of our Lady?

If you’re single (and maybe you don’t want to be, or maybe you are perfectly content), how about forty days of placing in God’s hand your future relationships and vocation?

If you’re a seminarian, clergy, or consecrated religious, how about forty days of falling in love with Jesus again?

Artwork: Sacred Heart of Jesus, Pompeo Batoni, 1767 (public domain). This is honestly not my favorite Jesus-face, but I’m such a sucker for the Sacred Heart.

Related: Can I Celebrate Valentine’s Day On Ash Wednesday?

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If you generally like what I do here but for Lent you want only strictly-Jesus topics related to evangelization and discipleship, One Soul at a Time is for that.  All the spicy stuff will still be waiting for you here at the blorg come Easter.