Check Yes or No

Remembering how we first fell in love

02/14/2022

Mk 8:11-13 The Pharisees came forward and began to argue with Jesus, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. He sighed from the depth of his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Amen, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” Then he left them, got into the boat again, and went off to the other shore.

Today is St. Valentine’s Day in the United States, and it is good to recall some simple but sage advice Archbishop Fulton Sheen gave about love. A lady came to him one day with a laundry list of problems her husband was having and asked the archbishop what to do. He first sympathized with her, but then added: “Think back to the day of your wedding and the handsome, strong, loving and brave man you married. His present problems are only temporarily clouding what you see. But the man you married on your wedding day is your husband, so be faithful to him.”

In other words, every married couple should take time to mentally return to the days of their courtship, engagement and marriage. And there they will discover their deep love again, like a fountain of romance from which they can drink whenever life’s problems make them thirsty for love.

One of my favorite George Strait songs is called “Check Yes or No.” The singer thinks back to the day he fell in love with his wife, Emmylou Hayes, back in third grade. One day in class she passed him a note, and before the teacher took it, he read what she wrote. She asked: “Do you love me? Do you wanna be my friend? And if you do / Well then don’t be afraid to take me by the hand / If you want to / I think this is how love goes / Check yes or no.”

That is, even though the singer has been happily married for twenty years, he still followed the sound advice of Archbishop Fulton Sheen and he thought back to the early days of love: courtship, engagement, wedding bells, even all the way back to third grade. In a sense, we are the best version of ourselves on our wedding day, and as the cliché goes: it doesn’t get any better than this.

It is no coincidence that February 14, Valentine’s Day, is also the feast of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. Indeed, it is a “God-incidence,” as people popularly say, or as the theologians would put it, a “providence,” that is, history guided by the hand of God. Why? Well, because these two blood brothers, who also became priest-brothers, were sent to the Slavs of Eastern Europe to teach them about Christ and Christianity. During their travels and teachings, though, they discovered that the Slavic people did not have a written language, even though they had a spoken tongue. So, around the mid-800’s A.D. they developed what would be called the Cyrilic alphabet (named for St. Cyril) that first translated the Gospels into this new language.

In a sense, Cyril and Methodius were doing what George Strait sang about, that is, passing a little love note. By translating the Bible into the Slavonic language, they were handing the people’s God’s love note asking them to “check yes or no,” to respond to God’s invitation to love, but put very simply, indeed, in their own language. Sts. Cyril and Methodius are called “the apostles to the Slavs” because they sparked the love affair between the Slavic people and God by passing them a note. And like Archbishop Sheen said: it is always good to think back to the days of courtship, romance and falling in love. That is always the best version of ourselves.

This St. Valentine’s Day I would like to ask you to do two things. If you are a married person, to think back to the days of meeting and falling in love with your spouse. Like in the George Strait song, did you steal a kiss on a school bus, or get caught passing a note? Married life is hard, and days get dry and we get thirsty for love, so go back and drink deeply from the fountain of your young love. That is the best version of your spouse, and that is the best version of yourself.

The second thing is to think back in your love-affair with Jesus. Try to recall when you first felt our Lord’s love: at a retreat, or at first Holy Communion, or in hearing a moving homily, etc. But also take out the Bible and re-read your favorite verses. St. Thomas Aquinas, as he lay on his deathbed, asked that the Old Testament book of Song of Songs, the erotic love poetry which we rarely read at Mass, be read from start to finish. St. Thomas felt it was the clearest example of God’s love note to him, asking, “Check yes or no.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!