Reflecting on God’s Love this Valentine’s Day

Of all the minor holidays, Valentine’s Day is perhaps my favorite, or it at least ties for the top place along with Halloween.

Reasons for my preference include its signature colors (red and pink is a top combination, as far as I’m concerned), the almost non-negotiable incorporation of chocolate into the day’s celebrations, and its calendrical positioning in mid-February.

By the end of winter, I’m over the dark and cold, and I need something festive and fun to brighten the month. A holiday like Valentine’s day does the trick.

I also appreciate Valentine’s Day for the quite obvious reason that it celebrates LOVE. With the Hallmark-afication of the holiday, it’s easy to roll your eyes at all things February 14th, and I get that.

But if we let ourselves give up all holidays, ideas, events and concepts touched by commercialization, well, we might be stuck living in total isolation.

That’s not what I want for myself, so I choose to not buy into all the Noise and Stuff of days like Valentine’s Day, and instead lean into the message that the greatest of all virtues is LOVE (1 Corinthians 13:13).

As far as I’m concerned, Valentine’s Day is a great day to celebrate love, and in particular, God’s love for each one of us. Here are some thoughts that I consider worth exploring with kids about God’s love on Valentine’s day.

All of creation exists because of God’s love.

I don’t think we can talk about God’s love without first talking about the fact that we exist because of God’s love. God is the ultimate source of all being and all of creation – the sun and the stars, the land and the ocean, the plants and the animals – are outpourings of God’s love.

I might express this to kids with words like these: God’s love was so big that it could not be contained. God could have shrunk God’s love but God decided to let it flow and expand and explode – and because of that, all of creation came into being.

As human beings, we are lovingly made by God and in the image of God

God lovingly created ALL of the cosmos, but God shaped human beings in a special way… in God’s image. Genesis 1:27 tells us, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.”

Does this mean that humans look like God, talk like God, and think like God? Not exactly.

Part of the mystery of life and faith is that we can’t understand things completely, and that includes what it means to be made in the image of God. But what we can know is that all people have the touch of God’s hand on them, in some way, even if we can’t totally understand what that means.

We show our love for God when we love God’s creation

When you work hard and give your time, thought, and energy to making something – a drawing or other piece of artwork, a batch of cookies, a Lego tower, a potted plant – how do you feel?

Maybe proud of yourself? Pleased with your work? Happy and excited about the thing you’ve created?

That’s how God feels about creation.

The book of Genesis tells us that after God looked over all that God made, God “saw that it was very good.”

Now, imagine that you take the thing you’ve created – your drawing, your legos, your cookies – and you give them to your mom, or sibling, or friend.

What if they say, “Ewww, gross!” or “Boring!” or what if they crumple the thing up or throw it on the ground? You’d probably be hurt, sad, or upset in some other way.

I imagine that’s how God must feel when we fail to respect the things that God has lovingly created. But when we show our love for creation…I bet that makes God feel appreciated and loved.

And, there are infinite ways to receive God’s love

Just like we show our love for God when we enjoy and give thanks for God’s creation, and extend love to our fellow humans, we receive God’s love in similar ways as well when…

We read stories about God’s care for God’s people in Scripture
We receive the Eucharist at Mass
We take a minute to pause, inhale a deep breath, and notice the gifts God has given us
We feel the love given to us by our parents, our friends, our teachers, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles, and the many other people who touch our lives. The love that pours out from others is an extension of God’s love.

There’s no debate – God loves us immensely, and there are so many ways to receive and share that love.

February 14th is a great occasion to reflect on this love and consider the ways you can deepen and share your awareness of it. Happy Valentine’s Day!