I believe in order to understand

On this Valentine’s Day, I offer a short post that simply suggests what I see at the root of the Catholic intellectual tradition: love. For love is the willingness to sign up for tragedy; to dare to run with others toward suffering, rather than avoiding it; to see one’s own happiness as inextricably bound up with the happiness of others; to find greater joy in sharing difficulties with others than in entertaining oneself.

Falling in love is dangerous and therefore thrilling, because it means that your happiness is irrevocably tied up in the life of another sovereign creature. It means that you relinquish any illusion of being capable of managing life, because its complications are multiplied by the very fact that you care deeply about everything that impinges on the lives of those you love. Today, anticipating some fun at a precious time in my young daughters’ lives, I feel buoyed by the simple joy of knowing they are happy. I know that at other times we will face struggles, perhaps even very serious ones. The happy times may be multiplied, but so too the experiences of pain; there are simply more of both because of the number of travelers.

On this Valentine’s Day, I pray that we may never be fooled by facsimiles of love, but that we may have the courage to live lives that testify to the reality of love.