Wishing you all a very happy Valentine's day! Today we celebrate love. In English, we have one word for love. In Greek, there were at least four... Let's look at the most common!
Philio- The love shared between friends.
Storge- The love shared between family.
Eros- The mutual physical attraction and love between a man and a woman.
All of the types of love are necessary and important, but each should direct us towards the ultimate type of love- agape. This is the total, all-consuming, sacrificial love which God has for us and which we should try to imitate.
(Side note: If you'd like some seperate posts about each type of love, comment below and let me know!!)
Jesus said, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." Every one of us is called to "lay down our lives" for those we love. True love means sacrifice.
True love is a choice- not a feeling.
You will not always "like" the people you love. We're all human. We all annoy eachother and have our little quirks. We all mess up and make mistakes. We all sin. But love conquers all of that. Love- true love- is greater than the ups and downs of life. As St. Paul says, "Love never fails."
Friends, on this Valentine's day, as the world focuses solely on their romantic relationships (or lack thereof...) I encourage you to Love more deeply and fully; strive to imitate the love of God in each of your relationships: with God, with your family, your friends, your boyfriend or girlfriend. How can you lay down your life for them and love them how God loves?
Some Quotes for you this Valentine's Day:
“Love is the most beautiful sentiment the Lord has put into the souls of men and women.”
~ St. Gianna Beretta Molla
“Let us love, since that is what our hearts were made for.”
-Saint Therese of Lisieux
“Intense love does not measure it just gives. ”
-Saint Theresa of Calcutta
“When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its women.”
-Venerable Fulton Sheen
“Love is never something ready-made, something merely ‘given’ to man and woman; it is always at the same time a ‘task’ which they are set. Love should be seen as something which in a sense never ‘is’ but is always only ‘becoming’, and what it becomes depends upon the contribution of both persons and the depth of their commitment.”
-Saint Pope John Paul II
“The things that we love tell us what we are.”
-Saint Thomas Aquinas
"Spread love everywhere you go... Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier."
- St. Theresa of Calcutta
"You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them."
-St. Therese of Lisieux
"The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Love; It signifies Love, It produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life."
-Saint Thomas Aquinas
And finally.... this one. WOW.
"There is no place for selfishness—and no place for fear! Do not be afraid, then, when love makes demands. Do not be afraid when love requires sacrifice"
-Pope John Paul II
I hope you have a very Valentine's day (And Feast of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, of course...) and that you know just how loved you are by our amazing Lord!!
With love,
Catholic Teen
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