Love as Sacrifice: A Valentine’s Lesson

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Love as Sacrifice: A Valentine’s Lesson

Roses in front of St. Valentine's relics and statue. (Artur Widak/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Tom Griffin is the chair of the religion department at a Catholic high school on Long Island. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief of a print and online Catholic magazine called The Empty Tomb Project. His first book, on the life and power of St. Francis for renewing the culture, was published in 2024.

Valentine’s Day has become a large national celebration. It’s an excuse for couples to rekindle their love through date nights and a chance for kids to give candy and cards to their classmates.

Many houses in my neighborhood place red lights on their homes as a way to prepare for the holiday.

These gestures are nice. Some of them are more intentional and meaningful than others. However, the true foundation of this day is built on the firm ground of sacrifice.

St. Valentine was a bishop who lived in the third century. Emperor Claudius II was in power during Valentine’s life, and he decided to outlaw marriage because he believed that this would help him gain more soldiers in his army.

Despite this law, Valentine decided to support those who desired to live out their vocation. He began marrying couples in secret despite the new law. He knew that love was more powerful and important than anything else in this world. He knew that the number one priority of our lives is to love and give ourselves away in sacrifice.

When word spread about Valentine’s actions, he was imprisoned.

His decision to marry couples cost him his freedom and, ultimately, his life. While in jail, he became friendly with the jailor. They would have conversations and became close. Valentine was even credited for healing the jailer’s blind daughter. Valentine and the daughter became close and he would frequently sign his letters to her “your Valentine.”

Valentine’s Day is therefore concerned with romantic love. That is accurate and historical, based on this bishop’s desire to marry couples against the law of the emperor. There is something about the love of a husband and wife that is meant to be all-encompassing. Marriage is a perpetual and unbreakable bond, which promises the future of self to the other, no matter what the circumstances of that future might look like.

In this way, we see that love is built on a choice, not a feeling. Too many people in today’s culture, unfortunately, claim that love is about a feeling. Once we fall out of love, we no longer need to remain together, even if we have committed our lives to each other.

The witness of St. Valentine, rooted in the cross of Christ and the logic of love, states that true love is personified by acting for someone’s good when we don’t feel like it.

This truth is encapsulated in the life of Mother Teresa, perhaps the most impactful modern saint, who would often say: “Love to be real, it must cost—it must hurt—it must empty us of self.”

On Valentine’s Day this year, this is the most appropriate question: Do my most important relationships (spouse, child, parent, sibling, best friend) cost me anything? What am I willing to do to ensure that my love for these people is sacrificial and not selfish?

Ultimately, this depends on our circumstances, but there are some sacrificial characteristics that we can learn from St. Valentine and apply them to our own lives.

First, sacrifice takes intentionality. The man or woman of great sacrificial love deeply reflects on and considers how they can act for the one they love in a way that reveals their heart for them.

Second, it takes vulnerability.

The word “vulnerable” literally means capable of being wounded.

Valentine was willing to risk his life so that couples could enter the unbeatable bond of marriage. All love requires that we make ourselves vulnerable in a radical way for the other. We do this by placing all that we are before them to ensure they know we will do anything for their good.

Finally, Valentine teaches us that true love means going above and beyond.

It was not good enough for Valentine to simply supper these couples or tell them the emperor was wrong. He married them and cared for them. Even when he was imprisoned for doing so, Valentine continued to love those around him like the jailor’s daughter—because true love knows no end.

So, on this Valentine’s Day, how can your love be grounded in sacrifice? For that is the entire reason for the day.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. 

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