The Cross and the roses
It will be that they are from Perugia, and San Valentino is the patron saint of Terni, and it is known that the provincial parochialism easily reaches the peaks of the ridiculous; it will be that I was the long, dry girl to whom no one gave chocolates; will be that Mister Right for long years seemed unobtainable, having to respect high standards of perfection - slightly more fascinating than the Great Gatsby, slightly better at writing than Michel Houellebecq, slightly brighter than the Marx brothers put together ...
In short, Valentine's Day I never celebrated it. I wondered what a serious thing has to do with friendship with the incarnate God who dies on the cross for us with roses, chocolates, pink apostrophes between words I love you.
Anything. Obviously it has nothing to do with it. But the sense of love is all there. If there is a place where it is really possible to make sense of the boyfriend's party, just one, this is at the foot of the cross. The fact is that only the love of God makes such an unlikely, absurd, arduous and insane thing possible like the love between a man and a woman. Love forever. It's totally unreasonable, up, we're serious. Who can really believe that those things you find irresistible now, the way to move your hands, to look away, to say ready on the phone, in twenty years will not get on your nerves? Who can think that the man or woman who respond to your need today - whether it is a desire for protection, a maternal instinct or a desire for lightness - will still be fair tomorrow, when will you be a different man or woman? Who can think of adapting to a creature belonging to another species - masculine or feminine - and that does not even speak the same language (just think of the apparently innocuous phrase "hello how are you?" That for a man is a courtesy formula, while for a woman it is an invitation to open the recesses of her heart to explain in great detail, exactly, "how is" her life at that time, so that as it is known certain men carefully avoid letting it slip out of their mouths, for fear of having to listen to the answer).
God. Only God can say forever. So, now that I think of it, passing over to the aversion for the Valentine with the lace like Charlie Brown I have always waited in vain, if there is a place where it makes sense to celebrate love, it is only in the heart of the Church. Love as it is understood by all Western culture, which has now become planetary - emotion, desire for conquest, the taste of discovery - is only the beginning, but love as the heroic capacity to give one's whole life for the other, this can only come from God. It will be a love capable of surviving at the end or at least the transformation of emotions, will be able to put a cross - it is inevitable that happens, even in the most successful marriage - on the desires of your heart, it will also be able to face cruel sacrifices, amputations of oneself, pruning,
The world tells the man to listen to his heart without hesitation. Only the Church has remained to tell the truth to man, and it is essential that it continues to do so, because today as never before it has been vox clamans in the desert: we are wounded, malcerte, insecure, unfaithful creatures. We know that from the human heart comes an avalanche of things on which we can not always rely. The heart makes us want, that is, to look up at the stars. But desire is a part of love. Love is a judgment, a choice, a decision, a commandment.
The first of God's commandments to man is indeed Shema, Israel. Listen to Israel. Listen to another source of information about yourself, listen to someone who is older than you, and see farther. Karol Wojtyla, when he was a bishop followed the engaged couples, he warned them: do not say "I love you", rather say "I share with you the love of God".