Feb. 14 is a holiday heavyweight this year due to a calendar collision of events.
Feb. 14 is a holiday heavyweight this year due to a calendar collision of events.
Yes, it’s Valentine’s Day, the fixed annual celebration of love and friendship, marked by cute couples, eager elementary school students — and critics who deride its commercialization. But it also happens to be Ash Wednesday, the solemn day of fasting and reflection that signals the start of Christianity’s most penitent season.
Ash Wednesday is not a fixed date. Its timing is tied to Easter Sunday, and for most Christians, Easter will fall on March 31 this year.
Easter also moves annually, swinging between March 22 and April 25 based on a calendar calculation involving the moon.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops lays it out: “Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, which is the first full moon occurring either on or after the spring equinox (March 21). … To find the date for Ash Wednesday, we go back six weeks which leads to the First Sunday of Lent and four days before that is Ash Wednesday.”
This year, that happens to be Feb. 14.
Not all Christians observe Ash Wednesday.
