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I know this seems like a late post, but Valentine’s Day 2015 has just passed and it amazed me the amount of reactions that flew by on my personal Facebook profile alone, much less on public forums. It was either the completely in love-gushy-I-love-Valentine’s-Day sympathizers or the completely-cynical-anti-Valentine’s-Day-antagonists. I see this yearly, and honestly, I personally love Valentine’s Day because I’ve gotten roses from a very special person every year for the past 14 years….I’ve been lucky, but I try not to gush…because I do believe what my friend Earle mentioned a few days ago – which is – if you can only show your love on one day of the year, perhaps it’s not really love. It’s a good point if you think about it, but at the same time I still get all mushy happy when I receive my roses. Anyway, I decided to check out how this celebration of love actually started off and did a little bit of my oh-so-in-depth-investigations (as you know I tend to do – thanks Wikipedia) into it….thought I’d share it with you…
Unfortunately, holidays, as we celebrate them today are completely commercialized – think about it. Christmas, the birth of our Lord, has been overrun with Santa Claus, gift giving and indulging in food and drink, instead of being about church and family and love. Easter, arguably THE major holiday of the Christian churches, has become all about the easter bunny, chocolates and (urgh) pastel colours. It’s not just the Christian religions that this has happened to, in the Hindu religion, Divali has become about fireworks and partying on the streets rather than prayers, cleansing and a celebration of Maha Laxmi, and in pagan religions, Halloween (believe it or not!), the day before All Hallow’s Day or All Souls Day, was once really a wake for the Souls that you celebrated the day after (thanks Wikipedia!), and dressing up was to “fool” the evil spirits and keep them away. Now it’s all about candy and kids and “evil”. Come on people – we have to somehow respect what these holidays are truly about, if you are unhappy with the way they are celebrated, perhaps just investigate a little to see what it was originally about and bring THAT back into it instead of bashing something you don’t completely understand…
Okay that’s enough ranting and raving – I will go back to the story of Saint Valentine now
And believe it or not I went beyond Wikipedia for this one!
Who was Saint Valentine?
During the third century, the Emperor of Rome was named Claudius, and Claudius was all about building a bigger and stronger and fearless army. He thought that if he banned marriages, then the men fighting in his army would not worry about their lives because they would not have a reason to want to go home (wives and children) instead of fight to their death fearlessly (okay, take it easy, this was 3rd century Rome). So he did. He was the Emperor of Rome, and he just decreed that no male of fighting age could get married.
Valentine was a Roman priest that lived at this time, and, despite Cladius’ decree, he continued to marry people in the Christian faith. This was a pretty normal thing for a priest, you may say, but do remember that when Valentine was alive in Rome, Rome was pagan – not Christian!! So by marrying people in the Christian fate, he was not only going against the Emperor’s decree, but he was also spreading the Christian fate – both of these were against the law….and in 269AD (see I do proper investigations once in a while), was caught, imprisoned and tortured for performing marriage ceremonies against command of Emperor Claudius.
Valentine had a bit of a following by this time, and even performed a few miracles while in jail. One of these miracles was the healing of the blind daughter of one of his jailors, Julia. She visited him in jail after the miracle and they prayed together, and, just before the day of his death, he wrote a letter to her to say goodbye, which he signed “…from your Valentine…”, perhaps inspiring all the Valentine’s Day messages to come.
Now in one of the articles I got some of this info from, Father Frank O’Gara of Whitefriars Street Church in Dublin, Ireland said it perfectly when he stated:
“What Valentine means to me as a priest is that there comes a time where you have to lay your life upon the line for what you believe. And with the power of the Holy Spirit we can do that — even to the point of death. Valentine has come to be known as the patron saint of lovers. Before you enter into a Christian marriage you want some sense of God in your life — some great need of God in your life.”
WOW. What a powerful message. In the end, that’s what Valentine’s Day is about – being so passionate about something that you would be willing to lay your life on the line, and celebrating that. It’s not about sex. It’s not about candy hearts or even flowers. It’s about love and I say love, not in the sense of romantic love or sexual love or forced passion…
Just. Simply. Love.
As you first knew when you were a child.
Pure. Unadulterated. Love.
Loving you and celebrating you on Valentine’s Day and every other day of every other week of every other month of every other day,
Serena.
My “in-depth” research was done here and here. (no Wikipedia!! *lol*)
- ...just trying to navigate through this obstacle course called life...
