Ash Wednesday Calendar Coincidences Inspired Murfin Verse

Catholic school students at a compulsory Ash Wednesday service.

Regular readers know that silly calendar coincidences trigger compulsive versification in me the way a strobe light sets off an epileptic seizure.  It ain’t pretty to look at and witnesses are embarrassed for the victim but can not tear their eyes from the spectacle. 

Last year it was the quite contradictory urges of Valentine’s Day, fixed on February 14 way back in 496 CE when Pope Gelasius I was regularizing the calendar of feast days.  He assigned the date to a legendary early Christian Saint of whom literally nothing was known. Ash Wednesday, the floating observance of the first day of Lent and the second most solemn day of the year after Good Friday. 

One observation celebrates romantic love with all of the urges and excess that implies while the other calls for penance, fasting, and a solemn rejection of the temptations of the flesh that might detract attention from the coming sacrifice of Christ.

A guy could get whiplash trying to cover both bases in 24 short hours.

Valentine’s Day/Ash Wednesday
February 14, 2024

The convergence of Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday last happened in 2018. It happens again in 2029, but usually it’s rarer than that. It won’t occur again in this century.

Mark the day for failed love—
    abandonment, betrayal, cruelty,
    abuse, brokenness, contempt.
Wear scarlet, sack cloth optional
    dine alone.
Give up dreams
    for the season.

—Patrick Murfin

                                                Cupid, the Roman God of erotic love, son of Venus and Mars, lover of Psyche.

I had a different take on the subject the previous time it happened just in 2018.

Valentine’s Day/Ash Wednesday
February 14, 2018

Doth the thumb smear on Cupid’s brow,
dour penance and virtuous sacrifice
    subdue ard/or or blunt the arrows
    from his quiver?
Or doth affection triumph after all,
    lust work its wanton magic, pagan heart
    smother sanctimony?

—Patrick Murfin

George Washington supposedly took communion with his aides and officers at an outdoor service  held by the Morristown Presbyterian Church which claims that he officially joined during the period when the Continental Army was headquartered there.  The claim is boosted on right wing web sites trying to prove that Washington was a fervent evangelical Christian.  But there is no evidence that Washington actually took the communion wafer or that he ever joined the congregation.

Before either of those occasions Ash Wednesday bumped right into George Washington’s Birthday in 2012.

The Vestryman
Ash Wednesday/Washington’s Birthday 2012

The Vestryman performing the duty expected of the local Squire
                attended chapel when absolutely necessary
            and when no good excuse like fighting an Empire
            or Fathering a Country was handy.

He sat bolt upright on a rigid pew
                    contemplated the charms of Lady Fairfax
                            or later dental misery.

            When came the Altar Call, he would stand up,
                        turn on his heel, and march straight out
                        as if a legion was at his back.

            No filthy priestly thumb ever grimed
                        that noble brow.

—Patrick Murfin