While the 14th is a celebration of Sts. Methodius and Cyril (co-patrons of Europe), we can also ascribe the day to St. Valentine. While there are three Sts. Valentine associated with the day, they are all connected with a sense of love and compassion. The amalgamated ‘Valentine’ is best-known as the patron of engaged couples and happy marriages, and of love.
Valentine, from the Latin valens, is a name that means strong, powerful, and worthy. It is fitting that when we think of our loving relationships, we want them to meet those descriptions! A loving relationship that is strong and powerful is one that is based on respect; one that is worthy is rooted in equality between partners.
Perhaps a way to consider our relationships this Valentine’s Day is to consider how God loves us, and to extend that to how we love each other. I invite us to dwell in the well-known description of love in 1 Corinthians 13.4-8a: Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
If we replace the word “love” with the name of God, we enjoy the power of love: God is patient, God is kind… One aspires to healthy loving relationships where putting the name of our partner in that place also rings true; and that our partner putting our name there is also accurate.
May our loving relationships be healthy expressions of love and respect. May those whose relationships might improve be willing and able to do that work with each other. May those whose relationships are unhealthy have the strength to seek new situations, and may we help them on their journey. May we all strive to be agents of love, this Valentine’s Day and every day.
