Dearest ♥ Granddaughter Mariyka,
February 14 happens to be Saint Valentine's Day, and I hope some nice fellow(s) shower you with flowers and chocolate! You're a fine young woman and you deserve the very best!
There was a real Valentine. According to a book I have, St. Valentine was a priest in Rome, and a physician (like St. Luke). He was beheaded in Rome on February 14, about the year 269, and was buried on the Flaminian Way (one of the main roads leading out of Rome) where a basilica was put up in his honor in the year 350, about the time Christianity became legal in the Roman Empire.
Remember that before Constantine, it was illegal to be a Christian, just as it was very difficult to be a Christian in Ukraine under the Soviets. So Valentine -- in my mind -- stands for love, for healing, and for being faithful to Christ in spite of difficulties. You have noticed that the Obama administration in Washington is trying to force people to accept a health care system that directly violates some core Catholic teachings; many of the (Latin-Rite) bishops have said they will not go along with it, and at least one has said he will go to jail rather than comply. I don't know what the Ukrainian patriarch and Bishop Richard Stephen have said (I don't have my new issue of Nova Zorya yet), but I bet they also will refuse to comply.
[Nova Zorya, New Star, is the newspaper of the Ukrainian Eparchy of Chicago.]
Jesus did say, "Render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" ---
Матей [Matthew] 22: 17-22
"Скажи нам, як тобі здається: Чи дозволено давати кесареві податок, чи ні?"
Ісус же, знаючи їхне лукавство, озвався: "Чого мене спокушаєге, лицеміри?
Покажіть мені гріш податковий." Ті принесли йому динарій.
Він спитав їх: "Чий це і образ і напис?" Відповідають йому: "Кесарів."
Тоді він до них каже: "Віддайте ж кесареве кесареві, а Боже Богові."
--- but Obama wants us to give him what belongs to God. And we must not do that! Please pray for our country and for our Church. I think we're going to be persecuted.
I'm sure you know all about Saints Cyril and Methodius. Their feast day is February 14 in the Latin Rite. And they show the love of God also, by bringing Christ to the Slavic people, and inventing the alphabet the Slavic people still use. But did you know that they invented the Glagolitic alphabet first? Here's a snippet from Wikipedia:
The Glagolitic alphabet was invented during the 9th century by the missionaries St Cyril (827-869 AD) and St Methodius (826-885 AD) in order to translate the Bible and other religious works into the language of the Great Moravia region. They probably modelled Glagolitic on a cursive form of the Greek alphabet, and based their translations on a Slavic dialect of the Thessalonika area, which formed the basis of the literary standard known as Old Church Slavonic. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/glagolitic.htm
Anyway, Dearest Granddaughter, February 14 has many lessons for us from God. Let us always keep our hearts and souls on Him.
Love ♥ and prayers always,
Your Grandpapa
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