Triumphant hearts, ashes, Lent and COVID-19
Sunday was (Saint) Valentine’s Day, when our hearts of humankind opened among us in a special way, full to bursting with love in all its aspects, notably between romantic lovers and yet also in highest charitable potential towards even the strangers and enemies in life. As a personal note it was on Valentine’s Day 2000 that this writer’s mother, Margie Quintana Fernández, passed away, which I take as a sign that other aspects of love can continue even through eternity …
And yesterday (Feb. 17) was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent when perhaps two billion Christians in the world were marked with burnt palm ashes on their foreheads in the shape of a cross, as a sign of humility, mortality and repentance for the sins and the wrongs that humankind perpetrates against itself and the ancient covenants between us and the creator and author of life.
Thus has begun the 40-day season of Lent, and by the close proximity of the Day of the Heart to that of Ash Wednesday, those in the world who will observe the Lenten season may from the outset be especially fortified and disposed toward this spiritual pilgrimage which by faith and tradition leads to and culminates with the Holy Week of the Passion, the death on the Cross, and the Resurrection of the one who is believed to be the Christ, the Messiah, the Most High.
Many humble and openhearted people will be making the spiritual journey through Lent, an arduous path through the pitfalls and the real and symbolic minefields and the war-filled skies and the vicious agendas of the leaders of nations in the world, believing that this Lenten pilgrimage will make a positive difference as part of a thousands’-years’ spiritual odyssey through the interminable heartless wastelands that certain others have made of this good world which is unique in the vast universe.
Here in our country of ‘el nórte,’ Lent has traditionally meant dedicating special time and effort for reflection, prayer, prescribed fasting, penance, reconciliation and as a time for extraordinary acts of charity and alms-giving, and for spiritual and corporal acts of mercy towards others including strangers and even enemies (if anyone has enemies?).
In el nórte, Lenten liturgies are unique and meaningful, often based on and drawing from the Spanish heritage and language here and other characteristic cultural and historic roots; and in certain ways incorporating indigenous Native American spirituality, as well as natural and supernatural and seasonal elements.
Now in Lent 2021, the world at large is still beset with tribulations, outrageous and gratuitous violence between peoples and nations, with always yet another conflict on the horizon, and always with the cynical killing and sacrifice of thousands and millions of people, especially the most innocent and powerless, to a primordial, implacable and inimical entity that has been at implacable odds against humanity for ages and that often works from within the people themselves, tearing out and consuming even the hearts of humankind.
Now even the normal human mayhem and unrest is exacerbated to the nth degree by the COVID-19 and variant viral pandemic that is invisibly and lethally spreading and multiplying exponentially through all of humanity in every part of the world, taxing our most clever, ingenious, desperate and inventive efforts and resources to defeat it.
But yet, even in the midst of this titanic conflict which has assumed sophisticated and technological forms that seemingly can move at the speed of light in lethality, it is now also the time for the Heart of humankind to triumph.
Now, from El Nórte and elsewhere, the Lenten pilgrimage can realize and bring the Heart’s triumph. It can be the time for the greatest lovers in the world to raise us all up, to overcome the blandishments and bloody illusions of the world, to transcend and overcome what has possessed and afflicted humankind.
It can be the time of the greatest Valentine, the Sacred Heart of the Most High, for the peace and the charitable order and the healing; and it can be the time for all to hear amongst us all that greatest of all phrases: “I love you!”