We have just celebrated the Feast of St. Valentine on February 14. It is interesting that this saint is celebrated much more by secular culture than by the Church. The man St. Valentine was a priest and martyr. In the year 270, during the persecution of the Emperor Claudius II, St. Valentine was apprehended for the work he was doing in helping those who were being martyred. He was sent to the prefect of the emperor and sentenced to death because he would not renounce his faith. First he was beaten with clubs, and then he was beheaded, martyred for his faith.

We celebrate many martyrs as nearly all of the first saints of the Church gave their life for their faith following the path of love that Christ Jesus trod before them. It is interesting that St. Valentine is so celebrated by our secular culture. I often wonder if they even know who he is. This man was valiant in his courage and love for Christ. He was a priest, celibate and chaste. Yet on this day the world celebrates romantic love.

What a wonderful opportunity we have to witness to our faith. We have the opportunity to witness to that enduring love the St. Valentine witnessed to in giving his life. Last Sunday we celebrated World Marriage Day, which always falls around the Feast of St. Valentine, celebrating the wonderful sacrament that Christ instituted as a sign of His love to be shown to the world. The love of spouses is an image of the love Christ has for the Church, giving up His life for her. How often we fall short in our love that is often self-serving and selfish. St. Valentine is a wonderful patron for us to look to that love which is eternal, that love that draws our hearts on to greater things, that love that fills our hearts with joy much deeper than any passing pleasure, that Love which is eternal.

I am once again reminded of the passage I shared with you last Sunday from the Encyclical Letter Lumen Fidei, The Light of Faith, paragraph 52,

“The first setting in which faith enlightens the human city is the family. I think first and foremost of the stable union of man and woman in marriage. This union is born of their love, as a sign and presence of God’s own love, and of the acknowledgment and acceptance of the goodness of sexual differentiation, whereby spouses can become one flesh (cf. Gen 2:24) and are enabled to give birth to a new life, a manifestation of the Creator’s goodness, wisdom and loving plan. Grounded in this love, a man and a woman can promise each other mutual love in a gesture which engages their entire lives and mirrors many features of faith. Promising love for ever is possible when we perceive a plan bigger than our own ideas and undertakings, a plan which sustains us and enables us to surrender our future entirely to the one we love. Faith also helps us to grasp in all its depth and richness the begetting of children, as a sign of the love of the Creator who entrusts us with the mystery of a new person.

The eternal Love of God draws us on, helping us to realize that there is more, there is a plan much bigger than our own ideas. This is the love that gave St. Valentine the courage to live his faith to the fullest and give his life for this love. This is the love which we are called to witness to in our daily lives as we give our life to the one(s) we love. As we are true to this Love, to Christ, the one who is Love, we too are drawn on to realize and recognize that there is so much more than this passing world.

St. Valentine, pray for us.

Fr. Jack D. Shrum