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Celebrating Love
My wife used to work at a local Hallmark store. Even before Thanksgiving each year,
she and her colleagues were focused on Valentine’s Day. By that time, their
preparations for Christmas were finished, with the exception of replenishing the shelves
and finishing the decorations. While they were knee-deep in ornaments, snowmen,
Christmas cards, candles and other gift items, lurking on the back of their minds was
February 14th.
A day set aside to celebrate our love for someone special (or for many others) is big
business. According to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion
valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine's Day the second largest card-
sending holiday of the year (almost three billion cards are sent for Christmas). The
amount of candy and flowers purchased is never greater than at this time of the year.
Our introduction to this tradition of sending candy, flowers, and gifts to those we love, all
in the name of St. Valentine, begins at a very early age (Kindergarteners are taught to
exchange Valentine’s cards with their classmates). Yet the origins of Valentine's Day
and its patron saint is shrouded in mystery.
Legend contends that Valentine was a Christian “priest” in Rome during the third
century CE. This was before Christianity was declared an acceptable religion of the
empire and Christians still occasionally suffered persecution for their beliefs and
practices. When the emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers
than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men — his crop of
potential soldiers necessary for the empire’s front lines. Valentine defied the emperor
and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When his activities were
discovered, Claudius ordered that he be beheaded.
Valentine may have sent the first 'valentine' greeting himself. The story is, while
awaiting execution, one of Valentine’s jailors brought his sick daughter to the future
saint for healing. Valentine grew fond of the girl, who returned to visit him in his last
days in prison. Just before his death, Valentine wrote a letter to her which he signed
“from your Valentine,” an expression still used today.
Valentine greetings became popular for expressing romantic feelings towards one’s love
as far back as the Middle Ages (written “Valentines” began to appear in the fifteenth
century), and the oldest known Valentine card (ca. 1415) is on display at the British
Museum. Widespread observance of the “day for lovers” in Great Britain was common
by the 1700’s and was carried throughout the British Empire. Today it is widely
celebrated in the Americas, Europe, most of Asia, southern Africa, Australia, and New
Zealand.
This year, Valentine’s Day comes a week before Lent begins. On the Sunday after
Valentine’s Day, we will “put away the Alleluias” and begin forty days of preparation and
reflection on the greatest act of love ever taken--that God so loved the world that, gave
his only Son so that all who have faith in him would live with him forever.
No symbols of romance--no flowers, no candy hearts, no poetic devotions of undying
love printed on greeting cards. But a rugged old cross, a crown of thorns, some blood-
stained spikes, and a broken body.
There is no greater love than this to celebrate.
Shalom.
Pr Mark
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