Dear reader, I share with you my very personal take on how we can reclaim Saint Valentine‘s Day this year as a Catholic feast day, a day on which we remember and honor the holy martyr Saint Valentine who loved Christ and all people more than his own life. May at least one line therein speak to your heart.
This year Saint Valentine‘s day is a Friday: we look to Him who bore our wounds and remember that there is no love without suffering and sacrifice
Have you ever loved someone? Love wounds us. Always. It is said, by the Roman author Pubilius Syrus, that the wounds of love only the one can heal who stroke them. It is maybe partly, but not entirely true. Ultimately, the wounds of love only the one can heal who bore all our wounds for us and whose love and whose name is like balm, “as oil poured out“ on every wound till it is “smelling sweet of the best ointments“ (Canticles 1: 3), either on this or on the other side of the grave: our Messiah crucified for us.
There is no true love without suffering and sacrifice. True love comes in the shape of the Suffering Servant stricken and bleeding all over bound to a cross, true love is a heart spiked with thorns. Every Friday is dedicated to Christ’s Passion. What true love means, we can only understand, participate in and flesh out in practice through Him, in Him, looking to Him.
“Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.“
John 15: 13
Every holy martyr, like Saint Valentine, testified unto death, laying down his life for us, that Christ, our Savior, the Suffering Servant and the King of the Jews, came in the flesh, died for our sins, was raised to life, and ascended to the right hand of the Father, and that all power in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. The martyr‘s love for Christ, for His Church and for all men is fierce and strong. Our hearts have grown cold and weary.
May love from above, like a burning coal, like a hot seal, melt and stamp our hearts and enkindle a new fire in us burning with the very relentless charity with which the Lover of all lovers comes for our hearts in courtship till the very last day – the scorged and wounded Lover of all lovers for us to behold, who on a hill outside the city gates of Jerusalem was “lifted up from the earth“ to “draw all things to“ Himself (John 12: 32) – the Lover of all lovers who, having overcome death, still bore the wounds we stroke Him, so that doubting Thomas could stretch out his hand and put it into His side (John 20: 27), touching the ever fleshly reality of His love that “was wounded for our iniquities“ – “he was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed“ (Isaiah 53: 5) – put your hand into the side under the Messiah‘s heart, the side that the spear of a Roman soldier has pierced and from which blood and water gushes forth (John 19: 34): the blood of our redemption, and the waters of our salvation – “pouring in oil and wine“ (Luke 10: 34) into your wounds, the wounds of sin and death, pouring in the ointments for your pain.
“Let us exult and rejoice in you; let us celebrate your love: it is beyond wine! Rightly do they love you!“
Canticles 1: 4
This year Saint Valentine‘s Day is a Friday: we pray the five Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary and remember that there is no love without suffering and sacrifice
Iesus qui pro nobis sanguinem sudavit (Jesus who shed his blood for us)
Iesus qui pro nobis flagellatus est (Jesus who was scorged for us)
Iesus qui pro nobis spinis coronatus est (Jesus who was crowned with thorns for us)
Iesus qui pro nobis crucem baiulavit (Jesus who bore the cross for us)
Iesus qui pro nobis crucifixus est (Jesus who was crucified for us)
This year Saint Valentine’s Day is a Friday: our fears and our loves
I‘ve been thinking a lot about relationships lately, past and present. And I do so especially today. Old friends I have not seen in years. People dear to my heart, near and far. Too rarely or barely ever do I let them know how much I care about them.
The past is over, but the past is also still alive and on our deathbed it will hover over us in the brightest colors. We cannot and should not shed the past, as if it never happened, as if it were never real – we always bear its marks. Wherever I need to repent, and wherever I need to turn things around – I certainly cannot do it all on one single day, on Saint Valentine‘s Day. Besides, one day of love is never enough. Our love can be so flighty. But Christ‘s love isn‘t: He is present in the Most Blessed Sacrament every day. In His presence let us learn that:
“Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely; is not puffed up; is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.“
1 Corinthians 13: 4-7
Yesterday a brother in Christ, whom I met in the summer of 2016 in Israel and who lives in Haifa with his family, sent me a verse from Sacred Scripture. It is found in Saint Paul‘s letter to the Church at Rome, the city in which Saint Valentine laid down his life. And I just can‘t get over it… And I know that I need to let go off my fear of getting wounded in love and love more boldly.
“Be tenderly devoted to one another in brotherly love; outdo one another in giving honor.“
Romans 12: 10
Saint Valentine, holy martyr, pray for us!