By Dr. Jimmy Braswell
Chaplain, Home Hospice of Odessa
February is the month of love and we all look forward to Valentine’s Day on February 14th to show and express our love for those who are special in our lives – how serendipitous that February 14th will also be Ash Wednesday this year.
Ash Wednesday is a day to physically express our love and remembrance of the loving sacrifice of the Lord Jesus for us by having our foreheads smudged with the ashes of the burned palms from last year’s Palm Sunday celebration.
As we express physically our love for those in our family and relationships who are very special to us this year, we also, by smudging, express and confess our love for the Lord Jesus in His great expression of love for us in His death and resurrection. So Happy Valentine’s Day with flowers and candy and jewelry to those we love and Happy Ash Wednesday with a smudge and blessing on our foreheads to say “I Believe” and “I love you” to our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Truly an expression of celebration of Love and its Eternal Reality.
