Love Is in the Air

Ignorance Isn’t Bliss

In our currently secular society, there seems to be an infinite number of holidays and traditions whose Christian (usually Catholic) origins are forgotten or deliberately discarded.

Unsurprisingly, Valentine’s Day is one of them.

Saint Valentine was a third-century Roman priest or bishop who became associated with courtly love.

Not much about St. Valentine’s life is reliably known, as there is even some confusion as to which Saint Valentine is being referred to because there was both a Roman priest and bishop with the name Valentine who was martyred by Emperor Claudius II.

However, most historians and theologians point to the Roman priest that lived from 226 to 269 AD as the “real Saint Valentine.”

This time period was a difficult era for Christians, as they faced severe persecution given the Romans were still a handful of decades away from Constantine issuing the Edict of Milan that legalized Christianity. Before this, it was extremely common for the Roman pagans to blame any misfortune on Christians, believing they didn’t give the false gods their due.

At the time, Rome was a cesspool of degeneracy, as pedophilia, prostitution, and promiscuity ran rampant in the empire.

It’s safe to say that the Romans had a warped view of what love really meant.

Additionally, Claudius II temporarily banned marriage, as he observed that married men tended to be more hesitant to enter battle due to their responsibilities back home. Because of this, he was having a difficult time recruiting enough soldiers for the military campaigns he had in mind.

These two factors played an important role in the story of Saint Valentine, as he began conducting marriages in secret for both Christian and non-Christian couples that were seeking real love and not the lustful desires popular at the time.

Predictably, it wasn’t long before Valentine was arrested and brought before Roman authorities.

Interestingly enough, he immediately made a good impression on them, and they were willing to let him go and void his death sentence on one condition: renounce the God that he spent day and night preaching about.

You can probably guess what his answer was.

Before his death, he managed to befriend the jailer, Austerius, and spent most of his time preaching the Gospel to him. Austerius enjoyed conversing with Valentine but wasn’t fully convinced about Christianity.

As a test, Austerius told Valentine that if this Jesus figure he loved so much could restore sight to his blind daughter, he would come to believe.

After Valentine prayed for her, her vision was miraculously healed, and Austerius and the rest of his family immediately converted.

While this cannot be historically verified, on February 14th, 269—the day he was executed—Valentine left a note for the girl whose sight was restored and signed it “Your Valentine,” creating the tradition that is immensely popular today.

Although the Feast of Saint Valentine was inaugurated by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD, it took time for the Valentine’s Day that we celebrate today to take form.

The first connection of romance to Saint Valentine occurred in 14th-century England, after a poem called “Parliament of Fowls” by Geoffrey Chaucer depicted Valentine’s Day as a romantic day when the birds were singing joyfully while searching for mates.

About 150 years later, King Henry VIII made Valentine’s Day a public holiday in 1537 by Royal Charter. In the same century, Hamlet by William Shakespeare popularized the idea of someone being your valentine, as an excerpt from Act IV, Scene V, reads:

“Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s Day,

All in the morning betime,

And I, a maid, at your window,

To be your valentine.”

Similar to Christmas, there are occasional grumblings about Valentine’s Day being a pagan holiday.

It is, in fact, not pagan.

The pagan celebration of Lupercalia was celebrated from the 13th to the 15th of February and was mainly associated with fertility, not romance.

Dedicated to the Roman god of shepherds and fertility, it involved sacrificing goats or dogs, smearing the animals’ blood on people’s foreheads, heavy drinking, and whipping women, who willingly participated, believing it would ensure easy childbirth.

Not exactly the most lovey-dovey celebration.

Although it has inevitably become commercialized, it remains an opportunity to remember that Valentine’s Day is not only about the love we should show towards strangers, friends, family, and spouses, but it’s also about the infinite love God has for each and every one of us.

Happy Saint Valentine’s Day.

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Thanks for reading and until next time.

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