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Valentine's Day is a good day on which to reflect that this nation
was founded as a country of brotherly love, and in
that spirit its capital city was named Philadelphia.
Halfway through the second month of the year, the birds began to
pair in England, and thus Chaucer wrote of a note of love:
For
this was sent on Seynt Valentyne's Day Whan every fowl cometh ther
to choose his mate.
By the fourteenth century both in England and France, St. Valentine's
Day came to be consecrated to lovers, a day for choosing mates,
a day for honoring mates, a day for expressing affection, esteem,
and love for mates.
Thus, maybe it was only a coincidence that "halfway through the
second month of the year" fell on the feast of St. Valentine, February
14, a feast day that had been celebrated since at least the year
496 AD. For centuries in Rome, the gate at today's Piazza del Popolo
was known as the Saint Valentine's Gate, on account of a little
church nearby, St. Valentine's.
But who was Saint Valentine? By one account, he was a Roman priest
tortured and put to death under the reign of Emperor Claudius in
269 AD; put to death for two reasons: as a Christian priest, he
violated the order of Emperor Claudius by continuing to celebrate
the sacrament of matrimony, even though the Emperor had forbidden
all marriages in Rome (in order to keep his soldiers single and
make them tougher). Secondly, the good priest refused to recant
and denounce his faith, and went to his death in good spirit.
For the daughter of his jailer, who like other young people looked
up to the "marriage priest" with great esteem, he left behind a
note, signing it (the legend continues) "from your Valentine." That
young couples should have been enamored of this particular saint
for the last 1700-plus years seems altogether fitting.
Yet if Valentine's Day is the day of love, what on earth is love?
In English we are penalized by having only one word for the phenomenon,
whereas Latin has at least five.
First, there is amor, that most generalized attraction, which
draws even rocks thrown into the air back to the earth, drives birds
toward their mates, and has been known to move a man and a woman
from "across a crowded room." This amor, in medieval eyes,
moved even the stars and planets in their orbits, so that Dante
could write of "The Amor that moves the sun and other stars."
A little more specific is affectus, that emotion, passion,
sentiment, that makes us warm, comfortable, snuggly, drawing us
into the arms of the other. As the Latin word suggests, this love
arises more from being moved, being comforted, than from choosing
or acting by will.
This latter aspect is taken care of by dilectio, which is
the sort of love that arises when you single out one person for
| “On
February 14, hug a Democrat!” |
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your love, choose that person, offer your love as a gift to that
single chosen one. (The root of the word comes from the Latin electio,
choice.) Humans share amor and affectus with the other
animals; but dilectio is a specific human love, the long-term
choice required for years of human child-rearing and lifelong union.
Of course, it is always possible for one person to choose another,
while the other person fails to reciprocate. Love is a free gift,
and cannot be forced. Thus, the love of amicitia is an especially
precious love, the love of two persons who freely choose each other,
the love of friendship. Thomas Aquinas writes that the most beautiful
reality in the world is the love of man and woman in matrimony.
That this was the opinion of St. Valentine, too, is obvious. He
was willing to die for it.
Finally, Christians use the Latin term caritas, to signify
the love that the Father has for the Son, and the Son for the Father,
a love so powerful that it is best expressed as an equal to the
Father and the Son, and named separately the Holy Spirit. The Christian
teaching about the Trinity suggests that, although nobody sees God,
and no human knows what God is really like, the part of human experience
that is most like God is the communion of two become one, like the
love between a man and woman in matrimony. The Christian God does
not live in icy solitude like Aristotle's God. We should think of
Him, rather, through the best experiences we have of human communion,
one with another. The One God, to follow the Latin phrase, is a
singular "communion of divine Persons," divinarum personarum
communio.
It is in this context that St. Augustine, who was born exactly 1600
years before the Cleveland Indians first lost the World Series (in
1954), described "the shining city of the hill" of the Scriptures
as "the City of God," that is, the "City of Love." He did not mean
"love" in its sillier senses, but in this sense: Humans sharing
in the love that characterizes the inner life of God, which God
offers human beings.
As many in the first generation of Americans often reminded themselves
after war broke out in 1775, they would die singly if they did not
bind themselves together in friendship. Their salvation depended
upon the strength of their Union. For this reason, they stressed
brotherly love for one another. This principle still animated Lincoln
in the terrible days of the Civil War of 1861-65. Apart from the
Union, he did not believe that liberty could survive.
It is good to have St. Valentine's Day once a year. We need to be
reminded that there are higher forces and more powerful currents
afoot among us, while we struggle against the obvious division and
incivility of recent times. We need again to forge a common Union.
We need again the warming spirit of St. Valentine.
Learning how to overcome domestic quarrels, heal divisions, admit
one's own mistakes and forgive the other, are almost as important
for citizens of a republic in their life together, as for two mates
in a long-term marriage.
On February 14, hug a Democrat!
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