Thursday of this week was St. Valentine’s Day. Interestingly, St. Valentine, whose memory we celebrate on Feb. 14, was a martyr about whom little is known other than that he existed. 

 

Interestingly too, there is little connection between the life of St. Valentine and the celebration of romance we associate with his feast day. Rather, it seems that Feb. 14 acquired that romantic connection because of a medieval belief that it was the day the birds formed up the pairs that would result in their companionship, nesting and hatching of their young. 

 

Still, the Church is often able to use elements of the local and popular culture to highlight Christ and the faith. There is no reason that St. Valentine’s Day should not fall into that category.

 

The ubiquitous advertising surrounding Valentine’s Day often focuses on jewelry and especially engagement rings. It is a recognition that the human trajectory of relations that begins with Valentines for high school sweethearts and moves through dating often points to a commitment to the divine and human project of marriage. 

 

We can say divine and human because God has shown us His plan for the joining of man and woman, fruitful in children and faithful in love, in the story of creation. But that plan is confirmed, written into our nature, even for those who have never read the Scriptures.

 

Marriage, however, is greatly challenged in our day. The Pew Research Center states that since 1960 the number of adults over 25 who have never married has virtually doubled. Their research demonstrates that nearly 25 percent of young adults ages 25 to 34 who have not married are living with a partner.

 

Even more worrisome, the Pew Research Center asked respondents to choose between two statements about marriage. They were: “Society is better off if people make marriage and having children a priority, or society is just as well off if people have priorities other than marriage and children.” Fifty percent of the respondents said the second statement reflected their views.

 

Pope Francis has, from the beginning of his pontificate, highlighted the need to recover the sense of reverence and commitment to God’s plan for marriage. 

 

Following two synods of bishops in 2014 and 2015, he issued a post-synodal exhortation on the “Joy of Love” (“Amoris Laetitia”). In that document he restates, for the modern ear, the joy and fulfillment that comes from the commitment of marriage.

 

The Holy Father uses that document to outline, with a keen understanding, the challenges young people especially face in following the call to marriage. He notes the cultural pressures toward individualism and away from having children, and the weakening of religious faith that is so linked to marriage and family. 

 

But in response to those challenges the Holy Father reminds us of our faith and especially of St. Paul’s teaching about love that is at the heart of marriage. 

 

“Love is patient, love is kind; love is not jealous or boastful, it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Cor 13:4-7)

 

The antidote to so many of our social ills and arguments rests in sacrificial and grace-filled love. The greatest and living example of love is marriage where a man and a woman leave their birth families to join together to form their new family meant to endure through thick and thin. 

 

They pray together, worry together, laugh about the little things, sacrifice for each other and are opening to building the future through the gift of children. 

 

For us as Catholics, we understand as well the need for grace and the sacrament of matrimony administered by and received in the Church.

 

Let’s continue the occasion of Valentine’s Day in this month of February to offer a prayer, even go to Mass. 

 

Make this month’s intention to thank God for His magnificent plan of marriage, and implore Him for the grace of its renewal and happiness in our culture and in our families.