It's Not Always About Romantic Love
By Lindsey Weishar
For some, Valentine’s Day is a crushing mid-February holiday. It underscores what some of us lack—romantic love. And even for those in relationship, Valentine’s Day may sometimes feel like pressure to buy the overpriced chocolates, the roses that are suddenly almost $5 a stem. Some wonder why there’s a day dedicated to showing love when every day should involve showing love.
Despite the very real concerns with this holiday, I must admit my excitement for it. For the record, I’m not currently in a relationship. The fact is that this holiday is associated with perhaps one of the most Catholic lessons I learned from my Catholic grade school education.
In seventh and eighth grade, our English teacher had a tradition around Valentine’s Day. She gave us 28 paper hearts, one for each of the students in our class. We were asked to write every member of our class a compliment on these hearts. You can perhaps imagine the concerns involved in writing nice things to each other in the strange world of early teenage-hood, on paper hearts no less. But my love language was involved here and I absolutely ate up the assignment.
On Valentine’s Day, we walked into a classroom with large multi-colored envelopes taped to the board. The envelopes were taped open, and on the outside of each was the name of a member of our class, written in our teacher’s lovely cursive. We then were tasked with placing each of our valentines in each other’s envelopes. I remember James Taylor’s “Shower the People” crooning through the classroom boombox, as we took time to read our “love” letters. “Shower the people you love with love,” Taylor invited us. “Show them how you really feel.”
And, you know, I like that Valentine’s Day is about love. I like that there’s a day to remind me to demonstrate love. What my English teacher made sure wasn’t lost in the translation is that love is so much broader than the romantic love Valentine’s Day is often geared toward. “To love,” says Thomas Aquinas, “is to will the good of another.” In this exercise of love, I felt that I was actively willing my classmates’ good, and they were willing mine. Even in their most generalized comments, like “You are so nice,” I felt acknowledged, seen. It is a memory that sweetens Valentine’s Day year after year, because this love is something I can still give to others.
This Valentine’s Day, I’m asking my social media friends to let me tell them why I like them. Though I won’t be able to send each of them paper hearts, I hope that through my words, I can show them just how much I value them. We live in a world that now more than ever needs to hear the words, “I love you,” in all the various ways we say it. We live in a world where people need to be shown they are loved in all the various ways we show it. Most of the time, I find it very easy to hold back. Valentine’s Day, though, helps me remember the little circles of goodness that have been woven around me throughout my life. Though middle school was many things unpretty, I am still drawn by the memory of telling each of my classmates something good about themselves, and of having this kindness returned in 28 paper hearts.
To be Catholic is to embrace the world. And whether your world is currently a family of five, a classroom of peers or students, a whole city, or the six inhabitable continents, revealing to others the beauty of themselves is a Valentine’s tradition worth continuing.
