DearJohn,
For members of the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, February 14 is especially important as the feast of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the ninth-century evangelizers of modern-day Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Croatia, and Serbia. They are on the Roman (worldwide) calendar of saints.
To most people without a strong link to one of those countries, however, February 14 is observed as the feast of St. Valentine, a physician and priest who was martyred in Rome in 269. In fact, there are other St. Valentines in the Roman list of saints, including another St. Valentine, the martyred bishop of Terni (about 60 miles from Rome).
The original St. Valentine was beheaded on February 14 and buried in a catacomb along the Flaminian Way leading into Rome’s Piazza del Popolo on the city’s northern border. St. Valentine’s relics are now in the church of St. Prassede (close to Santa Maria Maggiore and the Termini train station). An oratory existed on that site already in AD 150. The oldest parts of the present church date to the ninth century.
So how did this martyred priest become the patron of lovers? By the 15th century, many people in Western Europe believed that birds chose their mates on February 14, giving rise to the invitation to “be my Valentine.”
In classical times, there was a pagan observance on February 15 to honor Februata Juno; young men would draw the names of young women with whom they might begin a romance.
In the United States, the sale of Valentine cards and candy begins immediately after New Year. Restaurants and other businesses offer Valentine specials, usually aimed at people who are already married to one another.
Years ago when I (Pat McCloskey, OFM) was teaching at Roger Bacon High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, a young man asked me privately after class how he could know if he really loved a young woman whom he had grown to like. I answered that the extent of his willingness to engage in self-sacrifice on her behalf was probably the best indication of whether he was involved in a love with a future or whether this was a passing fancy.
A few years later I was chaplain for several Engaged Encounter retreats based on the cycle of romance, disillusionment, and the renewed decision to love. The first two stages are automatic, but the third one yields what we call “genuine love.” Lovers makes mutually generous choices and at ever deeper levels.
When a couple celebrates 25 or 50 years of married love, aren’t they “more married” than on their wedding day? Legally, no, but psychologically, they better be. The intervening years have been filled with joy, sorrows, and always many different kinds of self-sacrifice.
Some birds are monogamous, but they certainly don’t all choose their partners on February 14. Valentine’s Day celebrates the increasingly generous sacrifices that genuine lovers make for one another.
May your observance of Valentine’s Day 2021 help you to treasure your original romance with your partner, deal with any disillusionments that may have arisen, and strengthen you to make new and stronger “decisions to love”!
God bless,
Fr. Pat McCloskey
