I was struck by the pressures and anxieties experienced by young people today, and by the number of times the speakers tried to convince them to believe in God’s personal, unconditional love. I started to wonder why this message was being repeated with such insistence. It seemed a little cheesy. Doesn’t God’s love go without saying?

Who exactly was St. Valentine? His identity is sketchy, at best. Two saints of the same name are honored as Roman Martyrs – one who was a bishop of Terni, Italy, and the other a priest and physician in Rome. More than likely, St. Valentine, as pointed out in Butler’s Lives of the Saints, was a Roman priest who assisted martyrs under the persecution of Claudius II.

As we look toward Thanksgiving and Christmas, I realize that 2025 is quickly coming to an end, and so is the Jubilee Year of Hope. What will be our take-aways from this special time of grace?