The word “love” is one used very often in our culture, and in a month like this, it is thrown around more often than usual. Love is a wonderful thing, of course. Most broadly defined, it is an “intense feeling of deep affection,” and flooded with positive connotations. There is a universal longing to be loved, and when that feeling is not there, despair commonly follows.

To feel unloved often follows with the idea that we cannot be loved at all, which sinks into belief that we are unlovable. Worthiness begins to mean the measure of another’s affection or interest, and, when nothing seems to be there, we begin to underestimate our own worthiness.

This is not the love that humanity was put on this earth to experience! It can be one thing to recognize and understand this in longing for more than an endless cycle of similar situations, but it is another thing entirely to know what it is we are supposed to desire. The heart knows it, but that is not always so easily translated to the mind.

As St. Gianna Beretta Molla aptly put, “”Love is the most beautiful sentiment the Lord has put into the souls of men and women.”

Love is meant to be beautiful. Love is meant to be good.

The human heart is destined for love, and everyone has the capacity and desire for love, though this may not always be through romantic means.

As students at a proudly and authentically Catholic university, there can be discouragement and feelings of unworthiness if romantic love doesn’t happen clearly and immediately. True, genuine romantic love, however, is worth waiting for and requires patience and trust in God. This is a notion that is much easier to hear or say than actually do, but time is necessary to do anything well.

Scripture constantly reminds us of what the nature of love really is. Saint Paul writes, in 1 Corinthians 13, that “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, love is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury”.

It is easy to fall into sadness when surrounded by reminders of romantic love, especially during a month like this. Love truly is patient and, thus, requires patience. It is as much a virtue as it is a feeling; it is as much tied to our souls as it is to our perception.

Most importantly, our worthiness is not defined by our “ability” to be loved by others, because we are already loved so dearly by God. Our worthiness is not defined by dates, or by romantic gestures, or by the timing in which romantic love appears.

If love is, as Saint Gianna said, the most beautiful sentiment God has placed into the hearts of men and women, then we cannot be satisfied with romantic love unless He has a part of it, and He cannot have a part of it until we invite Him in.

So do not despair. Our longing to be loved is good, and our desire to love others is natural. It does not look the same for everyone, and the timing is rarely predictable.

We are already worthy of love because that is how we were made by our Creator, and that is something that can never and will never be taken away from us.