Ash Wednesday is on Valentine's Day next week. Can you eat chocolate and other sweets?

Since the times of ancient Rome, some Christians have been wearing a smudge of ashes on their foreheads every year during the Day of Ashes, also known as Ash Wednesday.

Churches around the world celebrate a special mass or service on this day. The church's clergy draw a cross on parishioners foreheads with ashes. For many, the ceremony marks the start of a penitence period that ends on Easter Day.

It's a day to limit meals and treats, but this year, it falls on Valentine's Day, Feb. 14. How do clergy feel about a few chocolates or those sugar hearts?

“Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are the only two days of the whole year on which fasting and abstinence are required,” Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo told parishioners in a video five years ago, when the two days last collided. “Those who are accustomed to celebrating Valentine’s Day might do so, perhaps, the day before.”

What is Ash Wednesday and who observes it?

Ash Wednesday is a Christian holy day 46 days before Easter Sunday. According to Christian beliefs, Jesus spent 40 days fasting in a desert before he arrived in Jerusalem five days before his crucifixion.

Within some branches of Christianity, the Day of Ashes serves as a reminder of mortality, and it also marks the start of Lent, a period of self-sacrifice. Resembling Jesus' 40 days in the desert, Christians give up something they like during Lent.

Multiple Christian denominations celebrate Ash Wednesday including Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, some Presbyterians, among others.

Where do the ashes come from?

According to the Christian faith, when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem the week of his crucifixion, the people there received him shaking palm leaves in a celebratory way.

Honoring the event, every year, on the Sunday before Easter, Churches around the world treat their parishioners with blessed crosses made with palm leaves. Traditionally, whatever palm leaves are left are then burned and turned into ashes to be used on the following year's Ash Wednesday.

When is Ash Wednesday 2024?

This year, Ash Wednesday coincides with Valentine's Day. The last time Ash Wednesday fell on Valentine's Day was 2018.

Ash Wednesday varies every year as the date is established through a moon calendar. The day is usually in either February or March.

What can you eat on Ash Wednesday?

Back in the Middle Ages, when church rules were laws in many places, people could not eat meat nor any animal derivates, such as eggs, milk and butter.

But today, rules are more lenient. It is mostly a personal decision for the followers of some Christian denominations, though the Catholic Church is more restrictive.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia states there isn't a dispensation from fasting between two light and one regular meal for Catholics ages 18 until and including their 59th birthday on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, two of the holiest days in the church year, or from the requirement for those age 14 and older to avoid eating meat on Ash Wednesday and Fridays during Lent.

But that doesn't mean a person who is following church guidelines can't enjoy a piece of chocolate or a dessert at mealtime on Ash Wednesday to mark it also being St. Valentine's Day.

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And it's fine to celebrate St. Valentine's Day early, along with Mardi Gras, also known as Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. In European traditions, that's when fattening foods are eaten and festivities take place in preparation for the fasting of Lent.

St. Valentine's Day has been a holiday since the time of Chaucer in the 14th century, but it wasn't until a chocolatier named Cadbury made chocolate hearts during the Victorian era, that chocolate became associated with the holiday, a report in the Smithsonian magazine states.

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At Stutz Candy Co. in Hatboro, a spokesman said he didn't believe VaIentine's Day falling on Ash Wednesday this year will affect the normal traffic flow for candy sales too much.

"It is generally only a one-week rush on our end, and mostly men shopping at the last minute," he said.

The legend of St. Valentine

Just who was St. Valentine, the cause of all this buying of flowers, cards and chocolate on a cold February day?

There could have been more than one St. Valentine but the most likely candidate was a Roman priest or bishop who was martyred around 270 during the persecution of Christians by the Roman Emperor Claudius II Gothicus, Britannica states. According to legend, St. Valentine "signed a letter 'from your Valentine' to his jailer’s daughter, whom he had befriended and healed from blindness. Another common legend states that he defied the emperor’s orders and secretly married couples to spare the husbands from war."

St. Valentine is considered the patron saint of lovers, epileptics and beekeepers, the research site says.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day coincide this year. What's to eat?