麻豆约拍

Good morning, and a happy St Valentine鈥檚 Day.听 The story goes that the Roman Emperor Claudius the Second forbade younger people to get married, because, he believed, married men made poor soldiers.听 But Bishop Valentine insisted that marriage was part of God鈥檚 plan and continued to conduct weddings.听 He was put in gaol, but fell in love with the gaoler鈥檚 daughter, and on the eve of his execution Bishop Valentine passed the gaoler鈥檚 daughter a note which read 鈥渇rom your Valentine".听

A later Pope, Gelasius, declared the 14th of February Valentine鈥檚 Day in memory of the third century priest.听

Or so one version of the story goes.听

At least having to prepare for this morning made me remember what day it was: unlike the day last November when I forgot our wedding anniversary.听 The good news, however, was that my wife forgot it too and only a phone call from our daughter made us both remember in time to celebrate.听

Winston Churchill once said about a speech he didn鈥檛 think much of that it contained every clich茅 in the English language except 鈥淧lease adjust your dress before leaving鈥� and 鈥淕od is love鈥�.听 听To believe that we would ever allow something as impossibly and notoriously fragile as love to become the guiding principle of a world shot through with self-interest seems to fly in the face of reality.听 We can even find it difficult to make it the guiding principle of our personal lives.听

But when I think like that, 听I keep hearing something which a great religious teacher called Reinhold Niebuhr, who was no starry eyed optimist, 听said about the vision of a perfect world: that it鈥檚 an impossible ideal, which can only be reached by those who don鈥檛 regard it as impossible.听 But as a much earlier Christian once said: our reach should exceed our grasp, or what鈥檚 a heaven for?听

Loving God, keep showing us your vision for our world and help us work towards it.听 Amen.

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