Happy St. Valentine's Day!
This day is about love. But, let us not fool ourselves about love, confusing "eros" and "agape".
The kind of love that we commemorate and celebrate today is "agape", the kind of love that demands total selflessness, commitment to the persons we love, and self-sacrifices for the persons we love. For this, we cannot hesitate to give our own lives for the sake of this love we treasure in a special way on this day.
For those who are in love - in committed relationships, including marriage, St. Valentine's Day is the very day to renew your vows and oaths to each other. This is the very day to renew and strengthen matrimonial vows, too.
How joyful it is for us to have someone to give life for - to die for!
Having the person to love - the person to give life for, the very person to die for - leads to deeper meaning of life, because having the person to die for really means having a person to live for.
The very person, who has given the best example of love - agape - is Christ, as he gave his own life for those whom he loves. And, that's us!
Yes, love may make us tremble with a prospect of sacrificing our own lives, as Christ did. But, sacrificial death leads to a new powerful life, just as how powerful the life of the resurrected Christ has been. And, it gives a great new light. Thus, we can overcome fear of sacrifice with joy of giving the great new life to the persons we love dearly.
Let us renew our oaths and vows, make these much more stronger, giving them more power to generate the great new light!
Let us ensure that our oaths and vows are not empty promises, as this Sunday's Gospel reading is about putting our inner motives and our deeds together seamlessly to be true to our promises and commitments (Matthew 5:17-37).
May our "panunumpa"s be always true to our hearts' true deep desire!
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