Post-Script to “The Love-locks Bridge”

C. S. Lewis and his wife, Joy Davidman. She died from cancer.

In a previous article, I reported and reflected on the “love-locks” bridge in Paris in which lovers have been putting padlocks on the bridge as a sign of their love.  I thought about this quote from C. S. Lewis, his book, The Four Loves:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

This is another reflection on those love-locks.  Locks are to keep things safe.  We think we can make safe the heart, especially as the “heart” is understood as the place of love (btw:  the “heart” in the Bible is the symbol of the will).   Lewis’ quote has poignancy in our day and time in which couples defer or do not have children. Changing one word in part of Lewis’ keen observation:

If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even a child. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.

I think this sounds “close to the bone”.   We even abort ‘inconvenient pregnancies”.  Marriage has devolved into worse than a reason for a divorce, a reason for a mutually agreeable business partnership with sex.  Love is not safe and put into a safe hoarding it, but extended to future generations.  “Be fruitful and multiply…”  Genesis 1:  28

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The Love-Lock Bridge

This is Paris’ Pont des Arts Bridge for pedestrians.  In the 2006 novel I Want You by Italian author Federico Mocca, 2 Roman lovers put a lock on a bridge and throw the key into the Tiber River.  This sparked a huge phenomenon in Paris in which several bridges are now completely encrusted with locks upon which love-struck tourist couples initial a padlock before attaching it to the bridge and throwing the key into the river.  The local magistrate ordered the padlocks removed from the Pont des Arts bridge since they weigh 45 tons and are threatening the bridge’s structural integrity. (Source:  The Week, June 12, 2015;  NY Times, “Paris Bridge’s Love Locks Are Taken Down”)

Couples in love instinctively seek a lock on their love because the innate understanding is “love is as strong as death” and “love never ends”.    So many songs are about the eternal nature of love.  Those two Scripture quotes indicate the everlasting nature of love for “…God is love…” and the Lord never ends.  I think in a day of such relativism, this  phenomenon of “love-locks” practically verifies the absolute Biblical truth from the Lord’s own creation of us, and the new creation in Christ, that we are created to love and  love never ends.  Love is supposed to as it is sensed by couples in love, you know “diamonds are forever” and the engagement ring.

 In the day in which “making love” has devolved into “hooking-up”, there is still this romantic instinct of  ‘eternal’ love.   I wonder, though, how many “love-locks” were put on the bridge, say, by one person coupling and decoupling?  It is not that sexual love is bad, for the Lord made husbands and wives so to  love.  The problem is what we do with said love. We want it to last, but we can not on our own.  I wonder how many of those couples wished, even within hours of putting that padlock on that bridge, they should not have thrown the key away!  

When many people say “God is love”, they really mean “love is God” (C. S. Lewis). Love on its own will not hold us fast.  There is only one way:  God’s holy love.  Love and holiness go together and the only “love-lock” that secures us is the love of  God in Jesus Christ for couples ‘falling in love’, and for friends, for families, with our neighbors and our enemies. The weight of those padlocks overloaded the Ponts des Arts bridge as  do all our fallen loves. Christ is the only love-lock bridge between God and man, between all men and women.  He has borne all our fallen love for our forgiveness because God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son (John 3: 16) and our unholy love broke Him and He is risen. Truly, “…love never ends”.    

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On Baltimore: a Meme and a Reflection

If my memory serves, when the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights protesters, using non-violence, were violently set upon by the white police, my Father and many white people were won over to the civil rights movement. We saw black people being being beaten, water-hosed, verbally abused night after night on the evening news. The seismic change occurred when others took over the civil rights movement and changed it from non-violence to violence: Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers etc. Then they lost white America as the violent protesters wanted to enrage but like MLKjr said in the meme above, they wanted to “annihilate rather than convert”. In the news about Baltimore, it was reported that in the ’68 riots that occured after King’s assasination, that many cities still have not recovered. This is tragic irony: the man who said and lived what he said prophesied what is still with us. King said that he not only wanted the oppressed to be free, but the oppressor. Our prayer and work must be now that the violent protesters be set free from their lust of vengeance. This goes for anyone of us caught in the cycle of rage.

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Bright Week! Thursday

 

Text:  Hebrews 11

Today’s Epistle reading is the Roll Call of the Heroes of Faith in Jesus Christ with the theme verse, the 11: 1

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ² For by it the people of old received their commendation.

In the middle of the Roll Call, there are verses of hope in Christ, by faith, toward the Lord’s will in Christ for all:

¹³ These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. ¹⁴ For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

The  hymn “I’m but a Stranger Here” (#748, Lutheran Service Book) expresses an Biblical truth we seem not to like as Christians, the first stanza:

I’m but a stranger here,
Heaven is my home;
Earth is a desert drear,
Heaven is my home;
Danger and sorrow stand
Round me on every hand;
Heaven is my fatherland,
Heaven is my home.

This reminds me of the country song lyric, “Everyone wanna go to heaven, but no one want to go now”.  We like it here.  We have a hard time with the understanding that, “earth is a desert drear”.  Never before in the history of the world have so many people enjoyed the life that just a century before was limited to the wealthy few:  single family dwellings, lawns, vast entertainment possibilities through, radio, TV, internet, even indoor plumbing.  Prosperity preachers make much ado about this that we can even more if we strike a deal with the Almighty. We are very much at home here and now and want to hold on for dear life…even Christians. Yet, if what I have written is true, we are being false to the faith and hope the saints of old lived in Christ:  the Lord has a better plan.  The Lord laid out this plan in the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth:  an enduring city, who’s builder is none other than the Lord Himself.  Even our desire, even lust, for the “good life”, the “best life” now and forever demonstrates that eternity is part of our very thoughts, reflecting in a fleshly way, the Lord Himself. Ecclesiastes 3:

 ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Eternity is in our will, that we know we were made forever with the Lord, yet on our own we can not find out “what God has done from the beginning to the end”.  Now with the Lord’s revelation finally and fully of the Incarnation, Ministry, life, death, resurrection and ascension of His Son our Lord, Jesus Christ, we know by what the Lord is doing.  For all our pagan attempts to hold onto life, grab all the gusto, we are looking to ourselves, inwardly, the despair of our times.  All the heroes of the faith, from A-Z, from Abraham to Zechariah were directed by the Lord to seek a “homeland”.  “Homeland Security” cannot give finally security and yet we seek homeland security for the here and now.  The hope of the homeland which is secure forever has been given:  the city of God.  We think our I-Phones/Pods and Pads are the “bomb”, giving us information and control at a finger swipe but all the while we want to be loved.  We live as if this were it, and fear and tremble that it is not. But,

“With all true Christians running
Our heavenly race and shunning
The devil’s wiles and cunning”,

we know by the Lord’s scarred hands that this world is not the final resting place.  Christ is.  I am, maybe like you, not too crazy about dying…but when we know sin is death, Christ is life eternal, seeking His homeland is sanity in this dark world for which Christ died.

In the Hall of Heroes of the Faith, note that all the saints therein were looking forward in hope, in the hope of Christ to come.  They had no cathedrals, except the Temple not made with human hands:  Jesus Christ (John 2:21; 1 Corinthians 3:17 ).  We pray many will hear the Word and come to faith.  But if faith is only for this world, or even for our congregation alone, then we are of all people the most to be pitied:  but Christ is raised from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:18-20).  It is clear from Hebrews 11:  Faith not only clings to Christ for what He has done for us but what He will do:  Thy Kingdom Come, based upon the Rock of our salvation,what He has done from womb to tomb to the Resurrection. Our national pastime, baseball, has it right:  to go home, after all the strike outs, errors, missed catches, we can in Christ. The homeland is given even now:

Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.-St. John 14: 23

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Holy Monday: Jesus is Anointed for His Burial

Mary Anoints Jesus at Bethany

Collect for the Day:

Almighty God, grant that in the midst of our failures and weaknesses we may be restored through the passion and intercession of Your only-begotten Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Old Testament Lesson: Isaiah 50:5–10

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 36:5–10; antiphon: v. 9

Epistle Lesson: 1 Peter 2:21–24

Gospel Lesson:  St. John 12:1–23

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”  (John 12: 23b “…for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” (John 12: 43).

The glory that comes from  the Old Adam always praises the glory of man. As a pastor wrote after “the Oscars” ceremony:  Idolaters worshiping their idols as their idols receive an idol. This is as old as Babel.

  And all man’s Babylons strive but to impart/The grandeurs of his Babylonian heart. (Francis Thompson)

We think that man’s glory will last the ages, as the 1,000 Year Reich proclaimed, but even the vainglorious ancient Romans knew something of the transitory nature of earthly glory:

“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conquerors rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.” (General George S. Patton)

“In the cross of Christ I glory, tow’ring o’er the wrecks  of time”. Not all glory is fleeting: The glory that comes from God glorifies His Son in love for us all, and His love is before the foundations of the world, ancient yet ever new (Ephesians 1: 4-5).  The Holy Monday Gospel is the severe contrast between the poverty of the glory that comes from man with the glory that comes from God. 

The evangelist John and many other eye witnesses of the Word testified, “…we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth’(John 1: 14). The glory coming from God is His extravagant and costly mercy, as seen “when Mary anointed the Lord’s feet”.  Judas was pinching pennies,not understanding such love, nor the Giver at the table.  Judas and the Pharisees magnifies the Adamic  lust after the glory of this world.  Judas could not understand Mary’s joy that her brother Lazarus was alive by the Word of Jesus.   Like Judas, the Old Adam is a thief, stealing to get ahead, attempting to rob God of the glory for one’s self.   As old as Eve (Genesis 3: 5). The glory coming from God is finally the costly blood of His Son for those who are poor in spirit to anoint our heads and feet with His forgiveness (Matthew 5: 3).Human reason, unaided by the revelation of God’s grace in Jesus Christ, can not understand such love. As  Mary anointed the Lord’s Body for His burial, the Lord has anointed us with His blood so our sin, our self itself is buried with Him, and that as He is risen,we too may walk in the newness of life (Romans 6: 4).  As our Lord said after His anointing:

“She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. ⁹ And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” (St. Mark 14)

We do not proclaim any good news of the rich and famous, Caesars and presidents, for there is none. In the whole world we remember what Mary did.  After the dust collects on trophies and awards and diplomas, they are forgotten but we remember with joy those who loved us. The Lord’s  love and mercy is never in the black, but always in the red, that is, in His blood.  A slave stands behind our ears who is the Lord of heaven and earth and says, ‘The glory of this world is fleeting, but  behold, I am with you even unto the end of age’ (Matthew 28: 20). 

O Lord  Jesus Christ, You who were anointed with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, give me grace so that I may sprinkle Your feet with penitent tears and may thus be enabled to anoint the members of Your spiritual body—especially the needy and suffering ones—with the oil of compassion and gentle kindness. Amen.  (prayer by Pr. Johann Gerhard)

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Enemy Sunday

Here is an interesting idea by Pastor William Cwirla:

“Rather than Friendship Sunday, we should consider Enemy Sunday. Invite an enemy to church. Pray for them. Give them a free lunch.”

After all, it is written as the Lord said:

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (St. Matthew 5)

When we get right down to it, isn’t this what the Great Week, Holy Week is all about, that is the Crucifixion and the Lord praying, forgive them for they know not what they do?

¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

Invite your enemies. Invite your mother-in-law.  Invite the guy who said the church is filled with hypocrites.  Invite the atheist professor whom you could not best in class.  Invite the guy who ran into your car and told you to go to hell. Invite the friend who blabbed your deepest secret all over facebook.  After all, His death reconciled you and I as well, that is, God’s enemies.  “Oh, oh, but…I am…”  What’s the end of that sentence?  No “buts” at His Cross, only His enemies. God is plain in His Word. He is plain in His judgment…and His mercy through His bloody love at the cross. He invited you and it’s not your good sense that accepted the invitation but your need for His forgiveness.  

So, I think Pastor Cwirla is on to something:   Enemy Sunday.

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The Morning after…Valentine’s Day

There was a rock station yesterday giving away a free divorce for Valentine’s Day   and Planned Parenthood encouragesabortions for Valentine’s Day, or as the President said in support of abortion, no woman should be punished for having a child.   The morning after Valentine’s Day might include the “morning after” pill to stop gestation, or ‘freedom’ from one’s spouse by yet another divorce or a stranger in bed after a “hook-up”. What has become of love and marriage, or is it marriage and then love?  For a solid reflection on that question read Chad Bird’s article in The Federalist, “Giving Away a Divorce on Valentine’s Day”.  Valentine’s Day is a far cry from the little known Saint Valentine.

Someone wrote a graffiti, “Love is Enough” and another person wrote, “No, it’s not”…especially the way “love” is understood these days as only lust.  The Gospel lesson for tomorrow, the 6th Sunday after Epiphany, includes Matthew 5:26-28.  Jesus goes to the heart, the will. As the country lyric has it correctly about himself and us all: “I’ve looked for love in all the wrong places”.  There  is only person and place to look for the meaning of love and His Name is Jesus Christ and the place is His Cross.  Luther’s Seal may be the best Valentine’s Day card: His Cross in our hearts killing sin, hence, black, but making our hearts alive and beating.  Love for loveless shown. Luther also wrote that ring around it is gold, the color of heaven, but it is also the color of a wedding ring, complete with the purity of a white rose.  He can make the foulest clean.  Hear His Word and receive His Sacrament tomorrow on the Lord’s Day. A blessed morning after Valentine’s Day!

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The Commemoration of St. Valentine, Martyr, +anno Domini 269

There was a Valentine and the caption of this cartoon fairly well sums up what we know of him.  Pr. Abrahamson has an excellent article over on the blog Brothers of John the Steadfast to show from original source material that the Church did not adapt the martyrdom of Valentine to compete with pagan customs of the 3rd century,  Redeeming Holy Days from Pagan Lies — Valentine’s Day.  This is his conclusion and then I have a reflection:

So much imaginative legend has grown up around St. Valentine that today it may be hard to separate fiction from truth. This leaves us to consider why it is that we have Saint’s days in our liturgical calendar. The purpose is that we may use their example of clinging to Christ against all the storms this world can throw at them, their examples of holding fast to the doctrine of Christ for the salvation of their souls, their examples of love for God and love for neighbor in spite of their own sinfulness in this sin stained world.

Christ said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Christ lived and died this example. He rose again to show He conquered Satan, Sin, and Death.

It wasn’t until the 1750s A.D. that men began to create the notion that the choice of St. Valentine’s day had other motivations than just the fact that February 14th was the day he was believed to have died.

This article is an effort to remove the chaff from the kernel that we may “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” without giving “heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith.”

Reflection:  My opinion is. with the current disestablishment of the Church, and the rise and desire for non-ritual worship services, that the void has been filled for such rites and rituals by the secular and idolatrous culture.  Valentine’s Day is now associated, not even with romantic love, but pure lust. Valentine’s Day has become the ‘high holy day’ of coitus and coitus is it’s ‘sacrament’.    In a society in which marriage is disparaged with every turn, so “love” has been debased with every turn.  I like sit-coms on TV.  Valentine’s Day becomes the plot in many especially for “hooking-up”.  It may be my imagination but as a kid, fifty years or so ago, Valentine’s Day was just a sentimental time.  No longer.  But even love as a mere sentiment of the arrows of  “cupid”, the god Eros is dangerous, remembering Eros was the false god of ‘love’ that is  lust and from that name we have our word “erotic”. 

St. Valentine is also about love, God’s love, agape in Jesus Christ.  This is one of those rare times that Valentine’s Day falls in Lent, the day right after Ash Wednesday.  Love is not neutral.  It is a good, an ultimate good. (1 Corinthians 13: 13 ).  But sinners like me don’t love as we ought.  Jesus came in love to redeem our love and cure and heal it.  I’m sure Saul of Tarsus thought he loved: the Torah, his people and the like and he wanted to murder Christians but Jesus revealed to Him  His true love, even to one as Saul:

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5: 6-8

Paul’s use of the 1st person plural pronouns “we” and “us” was honest and he found out about love, true love: He loved sinners to death, His death on the Cross.  Luther on the difference between agape/charity and our love :

The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it.

The Apostle wrote in Romans 6:1ff that when we were baptized we were baptized into His death…our love is also crucified so  that His true love take root in repentance and forgiveness and our hearts are made alive.  Paul and Valentine were both martyrs for our true Love.

I send you all a Valentine, from Martin Luther, his seal:

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Commemoration of Valentine, Martyr, February 14th, anno Domini 2,012

Scripture:

Psalmody:  Psalm 119:153-160/Additional Psalm: Psalm 35

Old TestamentReading: Job 10:1-22 /New Testament Reading: John 5:1-18

About Valentine:  A physician and priest living in Rome during the rule of Emperor Claudius, Valentine became one of the noted martyrs of the third century. The commemoration of his death, which occurred in AD 270, became part of the calendar of remembrance in theEarlyChurchof the West. Tradition suggests that on the day of his execution for his Christian faith, Valentine left a note of encouragement for a child of his jailer written on an irregularly shaped piece of paper. This greeting became a pattern for millions of written expressions of love and caring that now are the highlight of Valentine’s Day in many nations.

Reflection:  In a culture in which The Church of the Self is pre-eminent and utterly dogmatic,  and it’s Sacrament is Coitus Non Interruptus and Non Fecundus, and Hosts of the Priests and Priestesses in the orders of Planned Parenthood, NARAL, NOW fulfill it’s mission and abortion is it’s excommunication with no chance of repentance and life, then Valentine’s is the High Holy Day.  Our vain attempts at love on the basis of fallen desire will only make for greater sadness for the limited gladness it offers.  “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

It is obvious that the actual Valentine and with him, all the saints in Christ Jesus, speak of a love which is holy…Who is Holy.  There seems to be a longing on Valentine’s Day, on day in which a Christian by the name of Valentinus was martyred for love which never dies.  Two hymns come to mind: “Oh, For Love that Will Not Let Me Go” and

Oh, love, how deep, how broad, how high,
Beyond all thought and fantasy,
That God, the Son of God, should take
Our mortal form for mortal’s sake!

The Lord knows about love, for He is love, but love is not God.  This love between husband and wife is physical and spiritual and both are holy.  In His love alone can we learn to love.  Please pray…

Almighty and everlasting God, You kindled the flame of Your love in the heart of Your holy martyr Valentine. Grant to us, Your humble servants, a like faith and the power of love, that we who rejoice in Christ’s triumph may embody His love in our lives; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

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St. Valentine’s Day, February 14, anno Domini 2,011

A physician and priest living in Rome during the rule of the Emperor Claudius, Valentine become one of the noted martyrs of the third century. The commemoration of his death, which occurred in the year 270, became part of the calendar of remembrance in the early church of the West. Tradition suggests that on the day of his execution for his Christian faith, he left a note of encouragement for a child of his jailer written on an irregularly-shaped piece of paper. This greeting became a pattern for millions of written expressions of love and caring that now are the highlight of Valentine’s Day in many nations. (From The Treasury of Daily Prayer, published by Concordia Publishing House)

Let us pray:  Almighty and everlasting God, You kindled the flame of Your love in the heart of Your holy martyr Valentine. Grant to us, Your humble servants, a faith like Valentine’s and the power of love, that we who rejoice in Christ’s triumph may embody his love in our lives; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

  

 

Reflection on St. Valentine’s Day:  Many people decry Valentine’s Day sentimentality in cards, candy hearts etc.  Nowadays I find such sentimentality almost refreshing compared to what St. Valentine’s Day has devolved. 

I am at the age that I begin to say too often, Now when I was kid…oh, here it goes:  when I was kid St. Valentine’s day was actually all  about sentimentality.  Now it has become a MAJOR holiday as has Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day (please note:  all three of those holidays are actually Christian holy days). Why has this day become major holiday?  One reason is the relegation of the Christian faith and it’s influence on the culture to certain church ghettos (like this blog) which has created a vacuum, and so the secularization of certain Christian feast days.   But why Valentine’s Day?    As I watch television shows, this day  is not primarily a warm celebration of boyfriends and girlfriends and sweethearts but “hooking-up”.  It has devolved into a pagan celebration of the sacrament of erotic love  totally divorced from marriage.  Boyfriend and girlfriends and dating used to be for the purpose of marriage.  Not any longer.  It’s about the “relationship” which might be a one night stand and eventually many night stands.  It might mean “living together” and THEN marriage.  Like Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s day is about inebriation leading to the ‘hook-up”.   It does not entail “love” and what used to be called ‘love-making’ .  Please note: couples do not make love any longer: they seek fulfillment through sexual intercourse.  Valentine’s Day is the feast day of this secular ‘sacrament’ and the sentimentality still surrounding the day becomes a patina and a shell for lust.  There is nothing holy about Valentine’s Day in post-Christendom American culture.

The reason Christianity (and with it orthodox Judaism) has been so cast aside as witnessed on this day, named after a Christian martyr no less (!), is simple:  marriage and morality.  “Love is enough” a poet said and someone quipped:  No it’s not.  Not love not made holy by faith through marriage.  In ‘googling” St. Valentine’s Day I came across this at the Lutheran Hour Ministries and according to it:

In 270 A.D., marriage had been outlawed by the emperor of Rome, Claudius II. Claudius issued this decree because he thought that married men made bad soldiers since they were reluctant to be torn away from their families in the case of war. Claudius had also outlawed Christianity in this time period because he wished to be praised as the one supreme god, the Emperor of Rome.

On St. Valentine’s Day the year of our Lord 2,011, we also are seeing the outlawing of marriage in the United States as the basis of family and culture and society by serial monogamy in divorce, ‘hooking-up’, living together, pseudogamy (false marriage, that is,  homosexual ‘marriage’), pornography, etc.   Certain rulers in our own land, both  political and cultural, are considered as supreme, idols, in their opinions and pronouncements by many of our fellow citizens.   Even orthodox Christians become afraid of being labeled “fundamentalist”.   Back to the Lutheran Hour Ministries posting:

Valentine was the bishop of Interamna during this period of oppression. Valentine thought that the decrees of Rome were wrong. He believed that people should be free to love God and to marry. Valentine invited the young couples of the area to come to him. When they came, Valentine secretly performed services of matrimony and united the couples.

Valentine was the bishop of Interamna during this period of oppression. Valentine thought that the decrees of Rome were wrong. He believed that people should be free to love God and to marry. Valentine invited the young couples of the area to come to him. When they came, Valentine secretly performed services of matrimony and united the couples.Valentine was eventually caught and was brought before the emperor. The emperor saw that Valentine had conviction and drive that was unsurpassed among his men. Claudius tried and tried to persuade Valentine to leave Christianity, serve the Roman empire and the Roman gods. In exchange, Claudius would pardon him and make him one of his allies. St. Valentine held to his faith and did not renounce Christ. Because of this, the emperor sentenced him to a three-part execution. First, Valentine would be beaten, then stoned, and then finally, decapitated. Valentine died on February 14th, 270 A.D.

The color red is still apropos this day:  for the love of Jesus Christ and the martyrdom of Valentine.  Maybe in our Christian ghettos, we should remember not only married love but also St. Valentine who was martyred for the sanctity of married love and Christian families in Jesus Christ and so give our witness to a society careening in a very dark night, not as in the day of St. Valentine and His Lord and yours.

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