Redeeming Valentine's Day

Christopher West

I once heard it said that more "legal prostitution" takes place on Valentine's Day than any other day of the year. It was a reference to the idea that, on this insecurity-inducing day, couples around the world basically exchange chocolates, romantic dinners, diamonds, and other gifts for sex. Men and women, it seems, will go to great lengths to save themselves from the loneliness that creeps up when all the red hearts and romantic songs replace Christmas decorations and Christmas carols. It seems we all wonder at times, "Am I really loved, or do I have to buy his or her attention with something?"

This makes Valentine's Day an annual event ripe for redemption, ripe for John Paul II's Theology of the Body.

The fact that we set a day aside each year to celebrate romantic love points to the importance we all place on it, and rightly so. The love of man and woman is what makes the world go around. When the love of man and woman ceases, so does the human race itself. And it's precisely because it's so important, so valuable, that it has become so terribly distorted by the enemy. The devil is not creative. He cannot create his own parallel universe of raw evil. All he can do is take what God created to be true, good, and beautiful and twist it; distort it. This means that behind every temptation the father of lies uses to lead us away from God, we will find something that God created to lead us to him. And behind every distorted desire in our own hearts that lures us away from God, we can discover a God-given desire that will lead us to him.

So, Valentine's Day can become, if we allow it, an opportunity to celebrate the love we all really long for, the love of Christ for the Church, of which man and woman's love is a mere shadow. We needn't prostitute ourselves to know we are loved. We needn't spend lots of money. We, ourselves, have been purchased at a high price. Thank you, Lord Jesus.

Just a thought -- this Valentine's Day, share what you have learned of John Paul II's Theology of the Body with someone who needs to hear it.

Blessings,
Christopher West