On this Valentine’s Day weekend, the stores around town have on very prominent display everything from long-steamed red roses, heart-shaped boxes filled with chocolate, stuffed animals, diamonds rings; anything and everything we can give to the special ones in our lives that we love. I pray that God’s blessing will enrich the lives of all couples here in the parish today, not just because of the Hallmark holiday this last Friday but because of the Gospel we just heard proclaimed. This is a long Gospel that the Church offers us to reflect on today and we can go in lots of directions with it given all that Jesus gives us to chew on but it has been his words on marriage, sobering as they are, that have gotten my attention more and more, especially the last couple days as I have been praying with the Scriptures. And even though, or perhaps because, Jesus speaks of what is not compatible with married love, namely adultery and adultery of the heart, it seems like a perfect weekend to reflect on this extraordinary gift, marriage that God has left to us, the only creatures that he made in his image and likeness, and a gift which is increasingly under attack and being redefined in our lifetime.