Monday, February 13, 2012

my holy Valentine

It's a grand time for letters.  Letters, notes, valentines bursting with verse and humor and pop-up-song.  I love every one of them.  On Valentine's Day, give me hearts, give me roses, give me rhyme.

As a child, collecting valentines to line up on my dresser, I would count the cards and sort them and arrange.  Valentines from friends were put where I could see them readily; ones from boys I liked were given pride of place.  It was not unheard of for a girl to receive two or more valentines from the same young man:  a definite sign of not-so-secret love. 

"The Bible is a letter from Almighty God to His creatures,"  wrote Pope St. Gregory.  I read this today and think, if this is the case, then what a missive!  The length of it.. the poetry... the repeated declarations of total and absolute LOVE. 

"I have loved you with an everlasting love... I am constant in My affection for you."  (Jeremiah 31:3)

"Though the mountains leave their place and the hills be shaken, My love shall never leave you."  (Isaiah 5410)

"My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow Me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.  No one shall snatch them out of my hand."  (John 10:27-28)

I can turn page after page of Scripture and find such love.  Love that would suffer and die for me, declaring itself over and over and over - a definite sign of not at all secret Love.  

This is Love that deserves first place in my heart.  This Valentine's day, I shall (anew) accept it.  And I pray for grace to give love in return.  

Through prayer, through acts of charity, through aspirations of love and praise, I hope to give Our Lord a number of "valentines"... repeated declarations of a not-so-secret love.