Since today is Valentine's Day I thought I would post an article that I wrote a few years back on it.
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Embracing Valentine's Day
Each year at this time many of us celebrate Valentine's Day. But, like many other holidays, the holiday customs we observe today are quite different than the ones observed in the past. And just who was Saint Valentine anyway? Most of us have no idea or a vague notion at best. Therefore, let us take a look into the distant past and see what can be learned about this mysterious Patron Saint of Love.
We do not know when Valentine was born but the historical date of his death is circa 270 A.D. There are varying stories regarding the precise identity of Valentine. One is that he was a Roman priest, another a bishop in the Italian province of Terni. Much of what is "known" about Valentine falls into the category of legend since it cannot be verified historically. In fact, it was for this reason that the Catholic Church removed Valentine from their calendar of approved feasts in 1969.
The most common Valentine story --and the one I like best-- goes something like this: In the latter part of the third century A.D. the Roman Emperor Claudius II was having trouble finding enough young men willing to join his army. The primary reason, he determined, was their desire to remain with their wives or to pursue a wife. Putting his creative genius to work he arrived at a solution which was to ban marriage. Valentine, a priest, was outraged because of the high view he had of marriage and because he greatly enjoyed performing marriage ceremonies. Therefore, he refused to comply with Claudius' edict and was ultimately brought before Claudius for judgment. Legend has it that Claudius tried to get him to recant his faith, which Valentine refused to do, so he had him thrown into jail. Some legends talk about Valentine befriending the jailer's daughter during his imprisonment and writing her a note signed "Love, your Valentine" shortly before his execution on February 14th.
Although we cannot be assured of the specific details surrounding the death of Valentine, we do know that his death as a martyr made an impression on the early church that propelled him into legend. Additionally, both a Roman catacomb and an ancient church have been found that were dedicated to him. However, it wasn’t until a couple centuries later that Valentine's Day came into being. In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius was looking to create a holiday to replace the pagan holiday of Lupercalia celebrated on February 15th. Depending on the specific culture, Lupercalia was set aside to honor Faunus (Pan), Lupercus, and later Juno. All of these pagan deities were associated with love and fertility and the practices that worshippers engaged in during observance of the holiday is what Gelasius was seeking to replace. It only seemed a natural fit to supplant the holiday with an observance of Saint Valentine’s martyrdom given his death's relation to love and marriage. One practice involved a lottery where young men drew the names of women with whom they would then partner for the next year. Gelasius replaced this lottery with the practice of drawing the name of a saint whom they were then supposed to emulate for the year.
It wasn't until the Middle Ages that observance of Valentine's Day became popular and wide-spread. New customs began to be associated with the holiday. One custom was to have young men and women draw a name from a bowl. The person whose name was drawn would then become their Valentine for a week. Traditionally, the one drawing the name would wear a heart on their sleeve with the person's name on it. Another custom was to carve a wooden love spoon and give it as a gift to someone express your feelings for them. In recent times we have seen a change in customs associated with Valentine's Day. As with many other holidays, many of the new observances are largely driven by commercialism and clever advertising. The first commercial Valentine’s Day card was produced in the 1840’s here in the U.S. In our present culture we observe Valentine's Day with a quick visit to the florist's website to have a dozen red roses delivered to our truest love for the low-low price of $39.99 plus $11.99 delivery charge if we pre-order by February 11th.
So how is all of this relevant and what does Valentine's Day mean to us today? Should we observe it or should we boycott it in defiance of the commercialization of yet another holiday? Do we celebrate romance or do we reject the holiday because of its pagan roots? For me the answer is easy. Embrace it. Observe it. Use it as an opportunity to express love and affection to those you care about, especially if God has given you a special someone to share your life with. So what if it has pagan roots. God has given us something better to celebrate so let's do so. If it seems commercialized then develop your own simple and inexpensive traditions and express your love in other ways. One of the Valentine’s Day traditions my wife and I have is to exchange "Love Coupons". You can buy these already made at the store or, even better, make your own by hand. Depending on what you put on the coupon, this can express a great deal of love without blowing the budget.
If I seem a bit overbearing in the expression of my feelings you'll have to grant me an extra measure of grace. You see, as I write this I am just a week away from a big Valentine's Day celebration as I prepare for the Renaissance Valentine's Banquet that Marriage on Purpose puts together each year and I am very excited about it. If you went then, I hope you enjoyed it and caught a glimpse of the true spirit of Valentine's Day. If not, let me tell you a little bit about it. It will be awkward since I am writing about a future event in the past tense but here goes… Each year we put on a Valentine’s Banquet, the primary purpose of which is to celebrate romance and have a great time with our sweetheart. Our goal is to create an atmosphere where couples can reflect on the incredible gifts that God has given them: Each other, oneness, intimacy and lifelong partnership, just to name a few. This year we used a Renaissance setting to add an additional element of romance to the event. We enjoyed a romantic candlelight dinner based on a traditional wedding feast from that era and listened to romantic music. We fellowshipped with other couples and caught a glimpse of the special relationship between them as some of them allowed us to read their Valentine messages. We laughed together during the Trulywed Game Show as couples tried to show us how well they knew each other and a few of us even danced with the one we loved. I believe that times like this are a blessing from God.
It is remarkable that God dedicated an entire book in the Bible, Song of Solomon, to portray for us an intimate relationship between a man and a woman. Its poetic form and beautiful prose make it abundantly clear that God the Creator intended for us to richly enjoy romance and intimacy. Consider a few verses from this book:
Song of Solomon 7:10-12 I belong to my lover, and his desire is for me. Come, my lover, let us go to the countryside, let us spend the night in the villages. Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded, if their blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates are in bloom- there I will give you my love.
There you have it. A beautiful picture of one of the first weekend getaways in recorded history!
I believe that Saint Valentine must have understood these things and valued them very highly. Why else would he be willing to die for it? It is said that you have not truly lived until you have found something worth dying for. If this is so, then Saint Valentine must have truly lived. And I would venture to add that if it is worth dying for then it is certainly worth living for.
I think Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said it well: "The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire."
Happy Valentine’s Day
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