Brookfield Congregational Church

8 Common Street
P.O. Box 457
Brookfield Massachusetts, 01506-0457
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Phone: (508) 867-6262
Sunday Service starts at 10:00 AM
Communion First Sunday of the Month

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February, 2024

“Now, therefore,” says the LORD, ‘Turn to Me with all your heart’”

-Joel 2:12            

Hello my friends,

If Lent feels early this year it is because it is! Ash Wednesday is approaching on February 14th…wait…isn’t February 14th Valentine’s Day?!?!? They are one and the same in 2024. My first reaction was to compare the two, with Valentine’s Day being an overly commercialized holiday and Ash Wednesday signifying the beginning of the holy Lenten journey to the resurrection of Christ on Easter. The weren’t exactly comparable…or were they?

We must ask ourselves, what is a holiday? One perspective is that a holiday is a time to put things aside to focus on something significant. Something that is important enough that we should stop, recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate.

Regardless of Valentine’s Day having its earliest origin in the martyrdom of Saint Valentine in 269 AD, today the celebration revolves around the concept of love. A day to let others in your life know how much you care. While Ash Wednesday is the stepping off point into Lent, the Lenten journey is one that revolves around the concept of Love.

The apostle John writes, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son” (John 3:16). God’s love to send to us His only Son through which we could then know God, and watching the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf, can come from no other place than love.

When thinking about the two days together, they were more aligned than I originally thought. As we begin to prepare our hearts and minds for the journey through Lent, let us meditate on the concept of love. Let it be the preoccupying theme that we look for at every step from Ash Wednesday to Maundy Thursday to Good Friday and culminating on Easter.

While the journey involves anguish, pain, sacrifice, betrayal, violence, and grieving, it is, at its core, the ultimate love story.