Valentine's Day & True Love

I found this at Commonprayer.net

Valentine of Rome (d. 269)

A Christian priest in Rome, Valentine was known for assisting Christians persecuted under Claudius II. After being caught marrying Christian -couples and helping Christians escape the persecution, Valentine was arrested and imprisoned. Although Emperor Claudius originally liked Valentine, he was condemned to death when he tried to convert the emperor. Valentine was beaten with stones, clubbed, and, finally, beheaded on February 14, 269. In the year 496, February 14 was named as a day of celebration in Valentine’s honor. He has since become the patron saint of engaged -couples, beekeepers, happy marriages, lovers, travelers, young -people, and greetings.

I jump at an opportunity to celebrate a martyr. As a nearly unpersecuted Christian living in the United States I find it extremely important for believers to keep the sufferings of our brothers and sisters before our eyes. We can not forget that love on this earth requires suffering. The love that we see in Christ and those who love him can not be separated from suffering. In every aspect of our lives we must take up our cross and follow Jesus. It's easy to dismiss the unpleasant side of love and how it affects the world but we mustn't shy away from it. We must embrace it. The greatest loves are the hardest loves. The deepest love requires the most effort, the most selflessness.

Romans 5:8 states, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

John 15:12-13 states, "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends."

This Valentines day, as we celebrate romantic love let us not forget St. Valentine and the love that propelled him to love others and to invest in a selfless and bold love which eventually led to his death. Let us remember all the others like him who model Christ by loving others so well that they became empty of even their life. Their deaths were the evidence of their love just as Christ's death was the evidence of God's love.

Let us all embrace self-sacrifice and the type of love that looses (and loses) the self and embraces the people standing in front of us. This is something we can all do whether single, involved, engaged, married, celibate, divorced, widowed, or whatever else we may be. Let us love one another today, tomorrow, and every day. May you find and give more than greeting cards, candy, or shiny things today to those around you. May you give them your life and may you know true love. May you know Christ and the God of love who sent him.