St. Valentine
Feast day: Feb. 14
Knowing how much God our heavenly Father loves us, we are overjoyed to have a day in celebration of love! There are three individuals named St. Valentine referenced in the early martyrologies under the date of Feb. 14. Two of these, a priest in Rome and a bishop of modern-day Terni, Italy, were both martyred in the second half of the third century and buried on the Via Flaminian, an ancient road that led to Rome along the Adriatic Sea. They may very well be the same person. Of the third St. Valentine, not much is known except that he died in Africa with several companions.
The custom of writing love letters for St. Valentine’s Day more than likely originated in a belief, particularly in medieval England and France, that birds begin to mate at this time, half way through the second month of the year. “The Parliament of Fowls,” a 14th-century poem by Geoffrey Chaucer, made use of this association and confirmed the tradition of showing love on St. Valentine’s Day. Historically, the feast day of St. Valentine also has been thought to replace a pagan February festival of love so that holiness now emanates from a new divine love.
Yet, even in the third century, the two foremost martyrs named St. Valentine were both associated with acts of loving kindness. The Roman priest Valentine was also a physician who performed various healing miracles. For assisting Christian martyrs, he was clubbed and finally decapitated after he refused to denounce his faith during a persecution authorized by the Emperor Claudius Gothicus about 270. According to one story, while in prison, St. Valentine healed the chief warden’s daughter, who was blind — an act that inspired the warden to become a Christian, together with his entire household. Pope Julius I is believed to have built a church in memory of St. Valentine near the Porta del Popolo, formerly called the Gate of St. Valentine. Most of the relics of this St. Valentine are now in the Church of St. Praxedes.
Similar stories of kindness were told of Bishop Valentine of Terni, who was also martyred for being a Christian. The bishop prayed over the disabled son of a well-known rhetorician and philosopher, and the boy was healed. This healing, which led to the family’s conversion, prompted St. Valentine’s martyrdom by the Roman authorities. Nevertheless, in 496, just 200 years after the reported death of St. Valentine, Pope Gelasius described the details of St. Valentine’s life as “being known only to God.” It was the Benedictine order that encouraged veneration of St. Valentine during the Middle Ages in their monasteries in France and England. The Benedictines were also responsible for maintaining the church of St. Valentine in Terni during the same time frame.
In 1836, some relics were exhumed from the catacombs of St. Hippolytus on the Via Tiburtina and determined to be those of St. Valentine. Pope Gregory XVI made a gift of some of the remains of St. Valentine to Ireland, and these relics remain in Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin to this day.
Reflection
Dear Jesus, you are love, and I thank you for loving me and all of mankind. Help me to live in this love which transcends the details of any man.
Prayer
Almighty ever-living God,
by whose gift blessed Valentine fought
for righteousness’ sake even until death,
grant, we pray, through his intercession,
that we may bear every adversity for the sake of your love
and hasten with all our strength towards you who alone are life.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
