The greatest lover
The joke today is that people will have to choose which place to go to on the 14th of February. There are two choices, it seems, as the traditional celebration of Valentine’s Day coincides with the Catholic Church’s observance of Ash Wednesday. Today marks the beginning of the Season of Lent, and one of the days in the Church’s calendar that draw large numbers of Catholics to the celebration of the Eucharist.
The choices today are to go to a romantic dinner or to an equally romantic venue where couples can share intimate moments; or, to Church to join the celebration of mass and to be given the mark of the cross on one’s forehead as a sign of repentance and spiritual cleansing in preparation for the Lenten Season.
Whatever choice people make today, the fact is it will be all about “love” and how we understand it and desire to experience it. It will have to do with our insatiable need to be in union with a special someone and for our unending quest for the “greatest lover” or our dream of being one.
That search for the “greatest lover” or the aspiration to be one leads us to two sets of examples. One is the late American actor, Rudolph Valentino. The other is the three Saint Valentines (yes, there appear to be three, not just one) in whose honor Feb. 14 has been named and celebrated.
Rudolph Valentino earned a place in the history of the US film industry as “the Latin Lover” and must have been among the first to be labeled a “sex symbol.” The women of his era were said to have gone crazy over him, loved him, and, as one article said, considered him to be “the epitome of masculinity.” Another article said women found him “triumphantly seductive,” and “puts the love-making of the average husband or sweetheart into discard as tame, flat and unimpassioned.” Valentino, it seems, set the standard for one category of “greatest lover.”
There is another category of “greatest lover” – the one exemplified by the Valentines who showed what “great love” meant before there was a Valentino.
There are three Saints Valentine, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia. One was a priest from Rome; the second was the bishop of what is now Terni, Italy; the third was a “saint who suffered on the same day with several companions in the Roman province of Africa.”
Unlike their Hollywood counterpart, the original Valentinos were no “sex symbols,” no romancing lotharios, but were “great lovers” in another sense of the word. All of them died martyrs’ deaths, offering themselves as a sacrifice for others, for their faith, and their God.
They lived at a time when government authorities put Christians under persecution. These Valentines were martyred because they evangelized, preached the good news, and ministered to other believers who were similarly persecuted. One of them was executed for
“refusing to deny Christ by order of the emperor Claudius,” his head cut off.
Unlike the Hollywood version, the original Valentines were not the “epitome of masculinity.”
They were, instead, the epitome of obedience – obedience to the definition of what a “great lover” is as set by the greatest lover of all time, our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus, talking to his disciples, said: “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (New Living Translation).
Based on the stories surrounding their lives, this must have been the inspiration for the original Valentines. They loved by laying down their lives. They did not enjoy the adulation of women seduced by the beauty of the male physique. Instead, they chose the joy of obedience to the definition of love given by the Lord who, himself, died for us.
Following the Christ-definition of “no greater love than this,” we need not look far to find “great lovers” today.
We see that in the breadwinner-fathers and mothers who work hard to make sure that there is food on their family dinner tables, many of them enduring the loneliness and pain of separation that come with having to work overseas.
We see that in the emergency rooms of hospitals where medical frontliners attend to patients despite their state of near-exhaustion and the perils of contamination.
That kind of love is displayed by our public servants who give up personal dreams and who face physical dangers, including threats of assassination, to serve their constituents, uplift the poor, and create opportunities for our youth.
It is shown in our classrooms where teachers dedicate themselves to the task of educating our children, and in the process, give up precious time that they should have spent on their own; where teachers stay true to their mission despite the pay and the working conditions.
It is personified by the Filipino soldier who risks his life and faces near-certain death in defense of the flag, the constitution, and the sacred territory of our country.
They are, in our book, among the “greatest lovers.” We honor them today.
Have a meaningful Valentine’s Day, everyone. (Email: antipolocitygov@gmail.com)