I’d been chasing the day all day running from co-op to piano lessons and then there was the final stop at the store. I try not to speed onto our block but, the 6-year-old, “can noooot hold it!” another minute. In haste, I hand him the keys to the front door and circle around in the car to slowly unbuckle and extricate a sleeping toddler brother, hoping desperately not to wake him.

Augustine comes running back out the front door, panting from excitement and his exertion. “Moooom, Moooom! There’s been a thief in our house! AND he is in love with you!” “What on earth do you mean?!” I ask. “There is a huge jar filled with flowers and your favorite song is playing in the whole house!”

I gently remind him that it is Valentine’s Day. Dad must have come home to leave a sentiment of love with the added element of surprise. “Nope, the whole house is cleaned up so it can’t be Dad. It has to be a B A NDIT,” he says with his arms akimbo.

I counter the 6-year-old’s keen, know-it-all intuition: “Who else in the world knows that ‘The Divine Mercy Chaplet’ is the song that steals my heart?” I press the logic: “Who plays this very song to me on the piano?” I gain ground. He finally becomes convinced by my reasoning. “Yep, no thief would know how to play that long song that always calms you down!” He chuckles, concedes to my guess, and runs off.

I am warmed by the love, and somehow my frenzy is undone by the hilarity of it all.

Although my take on the mysterious Valentine thief is logically sound, I am the one still learning here, taken aback by the perspective of my boot-wearing, cap-gun-carrying 6-year-old. He knows immediately that pure white flowers, a clean house and “The Divine Mercy Chaplet” are a trifecta. This spells L-O-V-E.

At the outset, he is not altogether convinced that it is Dad, seeing that a spotless house isn’t his usual exchange of sentimental expression. Although I have a serious affinity for all things orderly and clean, I am stirred by the connection that Augustine does make. He is convinced by his awareness of what reaches my heart most deeply. This source is the very thing that anchors me with peace and calm from the depths of the heart of Jesus. The love of Jesus is what makes me known. My frenetic frenzy dissipates. I am known. I am quieted by His love.