In Rome, where St. Valentine lived and died as a martyr for Christ, at the one-mile marker on the Flaminian Way, was a basilica dedicated in his name. It was a "munifice ornate” (magnificently ornate). [source: Carola MacMurrough, The Catholic Valentine, Orate Fratres, January 1, 1941].
Love is also the most ornate spiritual clothing we could wear. Colossians 3:12-17 says, “Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
Stan Mast says when we get dressed each day, we begin with what? Our underwear, what old timers called ‘foundation garments.’ When Paul talks about compassion and humility, he is talking about the foundation garments of life, because those two-character traits are fundamental to human relationships. They summarize how we feel deep down inside about each other and about ourselves. Putting on compassion means that we feel with each other. And humility is how we feel about ourselves—not negative feelings about ourselves, but a lack of focus on ourselves.
Next, Paul calls us to put on the basic work clothes of the Christian life—kindness and gentleness. Those are the jeans and sweatshirt we wear in the everyday world…. Then, each day we must put on the shoes of patience. . . The final article of clothing Paul mentions is the overcoat of love; “and over all these virtues put on love, which binds them together in perfect unity.” [Source: Colossians 3:12-17, Author: Stan Mast].
St. Valentine was a martyr for Christ
Love takes a long-range view of the beloved's best interest. God's pure self-forgetful gift love has a perfect view of the beloved's needs and true fulfillment. Grogan writes, ... falling in love with the person of Jesus ... can be quite gentle and unnoticed and the quiet fruit of a good upbringing: it is in the Two Standards [the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola] that the painful implications of the relationship are starkly unfolded. One may feel trapped: ‘I never realized that discipleship could mean this!’ One desires Christ but fears the demands of being with him .... Yielding to the attractiveness of Christ makes it possible to yield to the non-attractiveness of his way of poverty and insults. [source: Brian Grogan, ‘Presenting the Two Standards II’, The Way Supplement, 55 (1986)
2. It was in St. Valentine’s honor that the Flaminian Gate was to become St. Valentine's Gate. He was buried in a catacomb, dug into the side of Monte Parioli, which is a hill just outside the city. This catacomb of St. Valentine is still seen today, where the memorial is celebrated on February 14th.
The spiritual gate of love of neighbor is the immediate fruit of one’s transformational union with God. This is because the self is the primary agent in union with God and thus the immediate subject whom the self begins to love differently, trying to love like God loves. Rightly ordered love transformatively emanates from God through experiencing God.
This helps explain Jesus’s “greatest commandment” “to love your neighbor as yourself’ (Mt 22:39; cf. Mk 12:31, Lk 10:27).
As Bishop Barron says, “Real love is a leaping outside of the narrow confines of my needs and desires, and an embrace of the other’s good for the other’s sake. It is an escape from the black hole of the ego, which tends to draw everything around it into itself.”
e.g. The two most overlooked romantic phrases are-
1. “I was wrong”
2. “Will you forgive me?”
Paul Lewis calls these phrases the most overlooked romantic words ever spoken by couples because they engender humility. And humility is essential to coming marital mountains.
3. The first site of Holy Rome that the pilgrims of that time saw as they approached Rome from the north was the great basilica of St. Valentine; for in those days they walked from Germany, from France, from Catholic England, from holy Ireland, over the mountains and plains and rivers, in cold, in heat, in rain and sun and dust.
Valentine welcomed them on arriving and wished them God-speed when they left. It was perhaps on this account that his memory was especially dear to them. [ibid; MacMurrough].
If knowing God is the greatest objective good for humans, then the aim of real love is helping others know God and know His Love.
e.g. Henri Nouwen was a priest and a professor of psychology who taught at some the most prestigious universities in the world. One day, he gave up his more comfortable life of teaching and serving at a prominent church in order to work at as a chaplain at a residential community for developmentally disabled adults in Toronto.
One day a resident of the program named Janet came up and asked him for a blessing. Henri made with sign of the cross over her and said a short prayer. The woman was not satisfied. She said, “Henri, it didn’t work.”
What was she talking about? His blessing didn’t work?
After Mass that evening, Henri tried again. He announced after Mass, “Janet wants a blessing.” He expected her to come forward for more prayer and anointing. Instead, Janet came forward and put her head on Henri’s chest. He hugged her and said, “Blessed are you, Janet. You know how much we love you. You know how important you are. You know what a good woman you are.”
Janet’s face shone with joy. This was the blessing she’d been looking for. The other worshippers got up out of their seats and came forward too, all requesting the same kind of blessing Janet had received.
They all wanted a hug and sincere words of appreciation.
[source: Based on a story told by Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved (New York: Crossroad, 1992), pp. 70-72.]
If only we will be His Valentine.
Amen.
