Happy Valentine’s Day to you! Please accept a gift that has no calories but still has a lot of energy in at least two different forms–my excitement about a little book I produced to make people smile about the deeper meanings of this holiday, and the bona fides behind the quotes used in the book to elevate it above the usual level of Valentine greeting.

Please let me know if you’d like a copy of Heartfelt Gifts to You, to Share: On Valentine’s Day, There’s More to Say. You’ll find that I took the featured quotes from the Bible, where there are many verses that use the word “heart.” After reading many of those verses and doing some research and reflection regarding them, in addition to research about Saint Valentine, a martyr and  the patron saint of love, I wanted to share some thoughts with friends about our appreciation for this day….

Especially for this holiday when it happens to coincide with Ash Wednesday, the solemn start of Lent!  The theme of the book wound up being love as a mixture of joy and self-donation–a purposeful, action-oriented love that secular celebrations may downplay even as the Church highlights the “big picture” of humility, penitence and transformation that can really prove heart-warming over the course of 40 days.

This mini-book became my way to “christen” the current phase of my communications career, which is represented here at OnWord.net. I hope my collaborations with good folks like you can contribute to the common good in creative ways embodying faith and reason. That will happen as we all share our respective gifts with others, including the gifts described in the Bible, with Jesus Christ as their hallmark.

My heartfelt thanks go out to all the people, like you, who bring grace into my life, into our lives–even when it’s not so easy, when the world isn’t only roses and chocolates. Most importantly, I’m sharing my gratitude with my wife Eileen, who is truly my Valentine.

If you would like a free copy of this pocket-size greeting, please email me at billgerards@gmail.com. Its celebration of solidarity in a journey toward perfected love is suitable to share on any day of the year. But Valentine’s Day is a happy day for launching this initiative–particularly in 2018, with its clear connection to Lent. We’ve all got a date with destiny!