Saint Valentine's Day, also known as
Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is a holiday observed on
February 14 each year. It is celebrated in many countries around the world,
although it is not a holiday in most of them.
St. Valentine's Day began as a liturgical
celebration one or more early Christian saints named Valentinus. Several
martyrdom stories were invented for the various Valentines that belonged to February
14, and added to later martyrologies. A popular hagiographical account of Saint
Valentine of Rome states that he was imprisoned for performing weddings for
soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians, who
were persecuted under the Roman Empire. According to legend, during his
imprisonment, he healed the daughter of his jailer, Asterius. An embellishment
to this story states that before his execution he wrote her a letter signed
"Your Valentine" as a farewell. Today, Saint Valentine's Day is an
official feast day in the Anglican Communion, as well as in the Lutheran Church Brazil
The day was first associated with romantic
love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the
tradition of courtly love flourished. In 18th-century England Europe , Saint Valentine's Keys are given to lovers "as a romantic
symbol and an invitation to unlock the giver’s heart", as well as to
children, in order to ward off Saint Valentine's Malady. Valentine's Day
symbols that are used today include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the
figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have
given way to mass-produced greeting cards.
Saint Valentine
Saint Valentine (Latin: Valentinius) is a
widely recognized third-century Roman saint commemorated on February 14 and
associated since the High Middle Ages with a tradition of courtly love.
Valentine was a
holy priest in Rome, who, with St. Marius and his family, assisted the martyrs
in the persecution under Claudius II. He was apprehended, and sent by the
emperor to the prefect of Rome, who, on finding all his promises to make him
renounce his faith ineffectual, commanded him to be beaten with clubs, and
afterwards, to be beheaded, which was executed on February 14, about the year
270. Pope Julius I is said to have built a church near Ponte Mole to his
memory, which for a long time gave name to the gate now called Porta del
Popolo, formerly, Porta Valetini. The greatest part of his relics are now in
the church of St. Praxedes. His name is celebrated as that of an illustrious
martyr in the sacramentary of St. Gregory, the Roman Missal of Thomasius, in
the calendar of F. Fronto and that of Allatius, in Bede, Usuard, Ado, Notker
and all other martyrologies on this day. To abolish the heathens lewd
superstitious custom of boys drawing the names of girls, in honor of their
goddess Februata Juno, on the fifteenth of this month, several zealous pastors
substituted the names of saints in billets given on this day.
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The date of his death: February 14. For his
sacrificial service, Valentinus was later declared a saint. And so, hundreds of
years later, we celebrate mass persecution and a brutal execution in the form
of heart-shaped chocolates and sentimental Hallmark cards.
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Because so little is known of him, in 1969
the Roman Catholic Church removed his name from the General Roman Calendar,
leaving his liturgical celebration to local calendars. The Roman Catholic
Church continues to recognize him as a saint, listing him as such in the
February 14 entry in the Roman Martyrology, and authorizing liturgical
veneration of him on February 14 in any place where that day is not devoted to
some other obligatory celebration in accordance with the rule that on such a
day the Mass may be that of any saint listed in the Martyrology for that day. Use
of the pre-1970 liturgical calendar is also authorized under the conditions
indicated in the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of 2007. Saint Valentine's
Church in Rome
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