Today, we celebrate Valentine’s Day. Saint Valentine is the patron of happy marriages, engaged couples and young people.

Please join me in praying for married couples as well as all those preparing to enter into the sacred bonds of marriage. The married couple is the building block of the family-the cornerstone of society. Today is a special time to celebrate the authentic love that a husband and wife experience in the person of Jesus Christ and the greater fulfillment of that love in the creation of a family.

And speaking of families, I ask that you pray also for all those working with me to prepare for the World Meeting of Families that will be held here in Philadelphia next year. That event has the power to transform, in deeply positive ways, not just the Catholic Church but our entire community.

Happy Valentine’s Day and may the Lord give you every grace and blessing.

+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Philadelphia

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Kenneth A. Gavin
Director of Communications
215-587-3747