Most Romantic Year Ever Starts Today

Happy Saint Valentine’s Week!

Why limit ourselves to a day?  Why not a lifetime?
Want more joy in your life?  More happiness?  More love?
Then decide today, you are going to be a person who gives.  Be a gracious and generous Martha.   Love and resentment cannot grow in the same heart, one will overpower and destroy the other.    If you are counting how many times your spouse does things that help you out, you need to stop counting.  Love does not count the cost, it pours out.

The most romantic year ever starts today, with all five languages of love in that crazy book, and more beyond.  To love is to imitate Christ.  Imitating Christ means “embracing the cross,” that is serving others –loving until you are poured out.

This is not a case of martyring one’s self of all accomplishment or freedom, it’s a willing offering of one’s time, talent and energy to the business of loving another.  The how of that love transforms over time, as needs change.   A mother surrenders her body to start, and her sleep, and eventually, she finds that the role of mom requires a grafting of herself onto the cross –because the demands of love of another are always even if they’re not the same.  A father likewise finds himself on the cross, because it’s a forever task to love, to be patient, to be kind, to be merciful, to be a source of strength and solace, wisdom and good judgement, courage and perserverance.   To love is to perservere, to embrace wilfully, the demands of a hopeful life, as they crash against the sufferings and struggles of every day lived reality.

Beauty that does not fade, is the heart of all our efforts –our soul being compressed by the labors of time, from something that seeks to be less than, into something that only reflects Christ.

So give roses, send cards, and footrubs and special dinners and all that, and on top of all that, put on Christ’s love, today and every day.  Make a deliberate decision to text your kids you love them.   Send a letter for no reason.   Plant flowers.  Make every day, a reason for someone else to feel better about the day.   The hope you grow in others, will rebound onto you a hundred fold because  God always multiplies the gifts we freely offer.

The world we long for, is one in which no one’s sufferings are ignored, even if they cannot be fully abated.  A just society seeks to restore people beyond what was injured.  Such a society must be rooted in love for others that extends beyond merely what is easy, comfortable, convenient, and without risk.  Love invovles risk.  It means trusting Jesus when he says, “Little girl, get up.” and “Lazarus, come out,” and “Fill these jugs with water.” and “Have the people sit down in groups of fifty.” and “Your sins are forgiven.” and “This is my body.”  and “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

As Catholics, we cannot feign ignorance or claim we do not know what our Master is about. He’s given clear instructions that we are to feed His sheep, that we are to practice to others what we would profess we would do for him.   We must visit the sick, comfort the mourning, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, clothe the naked, visit the imprissoned, and bury the dead.  Likewise, we must also pray for the living and the deceased, instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, bear wrongs patiently, forgive all injuries, and gently admonish the sinner, encouraging repentance.   If we fail in these tasks, we will find ourselves saying, “Lord, Lord, when did we see you?” and He will answer that He was there in everyone we encountered who had need that we ignored.

The world needs the glorious romance that comes from God’s grace, from God’s goodness, and we, being the body of Christ, are the messengers of that great news, that epic joyous reality.   So begin today, to be a love letter from God to the world, and make today and each day going forward, the most romantic ever.