WotW: Valentine’s Day

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The Origin of Saint Valentine’s Day

To many, Saint Valentine’s Day is a ‘Hallmark Holiday’ – a cynical celebration created by greeting card companies in order to motivate husbands, boyfriends and suitors into shelling out for flowers, cards and chocolate.
As a holiday, Saint Valentine’s Day has been celebrated since the mid 19th century – but actually dates back much further – all the way to the earliest days of Christianity itself. Many people are unaware that there was a real Saint Valentine – and it was his story that would inspire the modern day celebration of love, partnership and inflated Hallmark Inc. profit margins.
The story of Saint Valentine is, unsurprisingly, not a happy one. Let’s be honest here – Catholic Saints have never had it good. There are a lot of preconditions to being considered for ‘sainthood’ by the Catholic Church – but the most non-negotiable is being dead (which kind of spoils the ending of the tale of Saint Valentine.)
Valentine, as he was known before the ‘Saint’ bit was added, was a Roman nobleman who lived during the reign of emperor Claudius Gothicus. Unknown to the polite, pagan society of the time, Valentine was one of the earliest Christian priests – and was caught marrying couples in secret, according to the earliest traditions of the Catholic Church.
Roman soldiers arrested and imprisoned this rebel priest – hurling him into the dungeons beneath Claudius’ palace in Rome, where Valentine was left to rot.
This martyr-to-be had only the jailor and his blind daughter for company; but the stalwart Christian didn’t despair. Instead, he befriended the jailor’s daughter and performed the first of a Catholic Saint’s three prerequisite miracles – he cured her blindness.
When Emperor Claudius heard about this miracle, he was impressed – so much so that he visited Valentine… and became even more impressed. In fact, Claudius attended his prisoner many times during the following months, until Valentine performed his second miracle – converting the pagan emperor to Christianity.
But as is typical in Catholic lore, such good deeds rarely go unpunished – and the Roman court did not look kindly upon their emperor being converted to this new, untrusted faith – so-called ‘Christianity.’ They overruled Claudius’ protests and fast-tracked Valentine’s execution.
Valentine was sentenced to be beheaded. On the eve of his execution, he sat on his own in his cell, lamenting his fate and questioning the path his God had set him on. Despite having kept it during his long months of captivity, this was the moment upon which Valentine first doubted his faith.
And then he received a message.
It was a card, from the jailor’s daughter – thanking Valentine not just for curing her blindness, but introducing her to Christianity. This message of love and gratitude to ‘her Valentine’ is commonly credited as the origin of the Valentine’s Day cards we send today – and was enough to restore Valentine’s faith just moments before he faced the executioner’s axe.
That was the third in his triumvirate of miracles – and the one which would eventually lead to his canonization.
Valentine lost his head, of course – as did many Christian saints during those turbulent early days of Christianity. But he also left his legacy – the holiday we celebrate every February 14th.
So this Valentine’s day, it’s all very well complaining about the cynical commercialization of the season – but do remember that the holiday has a colorful history and origins that stretch back to long before Hallmark Greeting Cards very even envisioned.
Happy Valentines!