By happy coincidence St. Valentine's Day falls on Ash Wednesday, which may serve as a favorable reminder that Lent is about love and gratitude.  Ash Wednesday urgently reminds us  that we are earth and to earth we shall return.  Simultaneously this blessing reminds us that we are brothers and sisters of the incarnate Lord, the body of Christ.  In the words of the Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner, "[By these words] "remember you are dust and to dust you shall return," we are told everything that we are:  nothingness that is filled with eternity; death that teems with life; futility that's redeemed; dust that is God's life forever"  ( The Eternal Year, 62).  Love will have the last word. 

Long ago the Greek tragedian Aeschylus declared, "It is through suffering that learning comes."  By that measure, we should all be super wise!  But it's more than that:  it's through suffering united with Christ that we become united as tendrils and branches to the vine that is Christ.  United with Christ, we are the Body of Christ and hence all children of the one God.  God has created us in Love, and so united as brothers and sisters our daily prayer can be "Thank you, thank you, thank You."

That's what Lent is about.  It's a deepening of Love that pours itself out in gratitude and thanksgiving.  These gifts align us with God so that our decisions are attuned with the divine heart.  Likewise, our own mission at Loyola Institute echoes this truth:  we are setting hearts on fire for the love of God, for the world and for others.