Valentine’s Day Reflections

Details: 11 February 2011

Thanks to the "Theology of the Body" of Pope John Paul II, the Church understands more deeply than ever the meaning of the verse from Scripture: "God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them" (Gn. 1:27). What God is saying here is that man and woman together present to the world an image of God’s love.

In John Paul’s way of thinking, the vocation of woman is to reveal God’s beauty to the world. Woman is made to be beautiful. Our culture’s emphasis on physical beauty is not entirely bad, but it often is shallow and misdirected. The deepest way a woman is beautiful is when she reveals to others their own goodness by teaching them the love God has for them. This is what the late pope termed the feminine genius, referring to how women naturally reveal the goodness of the human person, and thus the beauty of God.

What Blessed Teresa of Calcutta did for the poor every woman can do in her own environment, and certainly every mother should do in her home for her husband and children. What is done at home is perhaps the most fulfilling "work" of women, but there remains in every woman an emotional need to feel that her beauty is appreciated.

Thus, one of the best things a husband can do for his wife is to give real assurances now and then that she is still beautiful in his eyes, no matter how the world or culture might evaluate her. That is the real essence of a romantic gesture for most women. Affirmation of the wife’s beauty is a sign that she is appreciated not just as a cook and chauffer for the kids, but as a life-long intimate partner created to live in communion with her husband and to reflect divine beauty in the world.

Valentine’s Day has its roots in Christianity. There are actually several St. Valentines recorded as martyrs of the early Church. But what is it, we may wonder, about this Christian holiday that appeals to popular culture so much that they have embraced it as well? There does not seem to have been much association of the day with romance until Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a poem about marriage that included allusions to Cupid, long associated with the language of love. Since then, there seems to have been a conflation of Cupid and St. Valentine.

Consequently, Valentine’s Day came to be associated with the "courtly love" of the medievals. A man can show affection and committed love to his wife in a multitude of ways, and the romantic traditions associated with Valentine’s Day only begin to scratch the surface of the many expressions of love a husband can exhibit toward his beloved. Unfortunately, such expressions all too often remain somewhat hidden from the wife and, as a result, that love is not experienced with the force it should have. True Christian love always reveals itself to the person who is the object of that love.

There is no necessity to celebrate Valentine’s Day, as it is not a Holy Day of the Church. But for those who choose to observe it, it could be an opportunity to celebrate human love in all of its dimensions, including the romantic, which are part of God’s gift to husbands and wives in the ancient and blessed bond of marriage. May those expressions of love between husbands and wives be for our culture an authentic reflection and reminder of the love God has for each of us.