Sacrificial love attains for us a deeper relationship with Christ

The month of February is one month during which we usually get caught up in love! Without going into any detail about the origins of the practice, we are all undoubtedly aware that Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, is a day that focuses on the dynamics that surround expressing love, especially romantic love. During the days leading up to Valentine’s Day, we will see displayed in many ways in the marketplace and in other institutions this focus on romantic love by way of figures of hearts, winged cupids and other decorations that are common for the celebration of Valentine’s Day.

All of these things seek to remind us that on Valentine’s Day romantic love between people should be, or even is expected to be, communicated by way of cards, flowers, candy, candles, dinner, balloons or other gifts. Romantic love is a wonderful thing, and it is a good thing in appropriate ways and in appropriate contexts to express feelings of romantic love. We should never tire of telling or showing those whom we love that we love them, and Valentine’s Day and its many practices can be a good opportunity to do so.

However, although appropriate expressions of romantic love are good, the danger that is inherent in all that Valentine’s Day and romantic love place before us is to fall into the incorrect belief that romantic love is the only kind of love, or even the deepest kind of love. Romantic love and all that surrounds it can engender in us the belief that love is only a “feel-good” experience or only a “warm fuzzy” expression that makes us happy. Unfortunately, many people fall into the trap of incorrectly believing that love is only this “feel good, warm fuzzy” experience. Equating all forms of love only with romantic love can lead to the conclusion that once the feel good experience is gone, so too is any love relationship that may have been present. Hopefully we are all aware that there is more to love than simply this.

As followers of our Lord Jesus Christ, we should be aware that we are called to a much deeper kind of love, a kind of love that is not as popular or welcomed as romantic love, and this is sacrificial love. Sacrificial love is rooted in denial of self in some manner for the benefit of another. Relationships founded on the full expression of what love truly is in its fullest reality will not only have expressions of romantic love, but even more importantly, these relationships will also have expressions of the deeper sacrificial love. After the “romance of Feb. 14,” the church will quickly call us on March 2, Ash Wednesday, to reflect upon and seek to undertake during the season of Lent a deeper kind of love which calls us to self-denial and sacrifice for the one who is loved, Jesus Christ our Lord. One of the purposes of Lent is to root ourselves again in renewing our relationship with Jesus Christ, who expressed for us in his self-sacrifice a love of great depth, purity and truth.

As those who love and are loved by Jesus Christ, we seek to engage in this deeper kind of love as well. At the very heart of the penitential practices of Lent is a desire to transform ourselves through our increased acts of prayer, fasting and almsgiving into those who can more authentically love and be loved by God and others. As disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ and in response to his new commandment that we love one another as he loves us, we are challenged to engage in this sacrificial love that costs us something and is for the benefit of others.

So we can and should enjoy the many expressions of romantic love that may be involved in celebrating Valentine’s Day, but may we also be aware of the deeper kind of love that we are called to embrace. Sacrificial love does not attain for us candy, flowers, balloons or any other such things, but rather a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ and with those whom we truly love in the fullest expression of the term. True love, sacrificial love, will lead us to eternal life in heaven. May the coming season of Lent transform us so that we can truly love and be loved by God and others.