In love, we trust

That the start of Lent and the Day of Love should coincide today is not that unusual. The last time it happened was in 2018, and before that in 1945. It’s bound to happen again in this century and thereafter.

What makes this particular time notable — or perhaps worthy of pause — is that the times call for people to reflect on it more. Before the pandemic in 2018, the juxtaposition was likely just a novelty.

Today, post-pandemic in a volatile, dying planet, we want to know if it is a message — what it means in our lives, or how the seeming contradiction between a day usually spent indulging or giving vent to the thrills and frills of love’s romantic side versus a day of sacrifice and solemnity, should matter.

For Catholics, the day will likely veer toward the Lenten practices of prayer, getting one’s forehead marked with ash in the shape of a cross, and abstaining from meat and three full meals over flowers, chocolate hearts and steak dinners.

Love can wait, they may say, and that would be the sacrifice they would make.

Yet there is also truth to what the Rev. Bjorn Lundberg, pastor of the Sacred Heart Catholic in Winchester, said:

“At its root, Lent is a season of love.”

Was it not love that made Jesus give up His life on the cross? Love is not always about the good times; in fact, it is not love at all if it does not come with pain and sacrifices. Love takes it all, the beautiful with the ugly, the imperfections, the travails, the loss.

Love that endures through good times and bad leaves one with marks much like the ashes Catholics will carry on their foreheads today. It is a reminder of our mortality — from ashes we come, and to ashes we shall return.

Some people seem to lose sight of this truth when they are at the

peak of power, influence and wealth.

But everyone goes through the cycle of life — we are born, we live, we die.

How we live is the question we might want to ask ourselves now — after all, most of us won’t get to have at least 100 years to call our own like Juan Ponce Enrile, whose birthday is today, Valentine’s Day.

JPE is a thinking man. His mind remains sharp, though he may have felt the frailty of his body in the last few decades. Yet he keeps his good health, eats well and spends his time doing things he loves. I remember interviewing him some years back and feeling stumped by the size of his personality. He was just sitting there, mind you, but his mind was engaged, and I could not help thinking how much I wanted to pick his brains and learn from the man himself what we have been doing wrong with the Philippines.

I really didn’t want to talk about his so-called lothario days. I mean, what for? If one got to be his age, and to be that accomplished and smart, he would be a well of wisdom.

And neither was I interested in grilling the man about all his previous political and personal sins — who are we to judge, anyway? We all bear a cross, whether we are Christians or not — and whatever god we worship or pray to for strength and guidance in our lives, we all do it out of love, don’t we?

You may call it whatever you like, but in love, indeed, we trust.

“I really didn’t want to talk about his so-called lothario days. I mean, what for?

“Love can wait, they may say, and that would be the sacrifice they would make.