Valentine’s Day has officially come and gone. Friday’s last minutes must-haves are marked down to make space for the next holiday-themed sweets in the candy aisle (as the inner-child in me rejoices) and the fuzzy teddy bears, pink roses and cupids disappear from view. Yes, I’m sure that at this point in time it hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice that Valentine’s Day has become a commercialized national holiday filled with warm, feel-good sentiments, pink hearts and teddy bears. And while I’m all for a day devoted to the expression of love for those that mean the most to us in our lives, I think it’s safe to say that at the end of the day, we’re looking for a love that’s more enduring than the sugar high provided by a box of chocolates.
In reality, our modern-day idea of this feel-good, romanticized holiday is quite different from February 14th’s historical reality. In fact, the romantic tradition associated with St. Valentine’s Day is only traceable back to Chaucer in the High Middle Ages. Before it was associated with St. Valentine, it was connected to the Roman holiday of Lupercalia, which was a holiday associated with sacrifice, not romance. In the fifth century, Valentine’s Day became a liturgical celebration in the Church, commemorating Saint Valentine of Rome on the feast of his death.
St. Valentine lived during an age when the Roman Emperor Claudius II forbade Roman soldiers from marriage, believing that if his soldiers had wives and families to return to, they would fight with less courage for fear of not returning to their families. Despite this ban, St. Valentine performed marriages in secret, risking his life and eventually dying for something he believed in: a commitment to the virtue of a love grounded in the commitment and mutual self-sacrifice of marriage. In other words: a love that will last.
In reality, this is a feast day celebrating a man who stood for something and was ultimately beheaded for his convictions. St. Valentine was a man who stood for more than an emotional-based, feel-good sentiment. This is a man who was willing to die for something that he believed in: an authentic, self-sacrificial love. In fact, Valentine is derived from the Latin word, valens, meaning “strong, powerful, worthwhile”.
Real, authentic love is more than a feeling but rather, a choice. A choice to continue to give of oneself and sacrifice for the other long after the initial glow is gone. For as John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”. St. Valentine did just that, and while his love might not look like a romantic candle-lit dinner for two, his daily acts of bravery, as well as his choice to love those around him through good times and bad, stand as a perfect example of the love he was willing to die for.
So while it might be tempting to think of St. Valentine as a little cherub, devoted to making all of our crushes fall in love with us and magically make all of our romantic dreams come true, his sacrifice is symbolic of a love much stronger than that. His love speaks of an authentic love that gives of itself and remains long after the sugar high is gone. And in my opinion, that is much more romantic than a box of chocolates.
As we move into the sacrificial season of lent that teaches us of the real meaning of love, let’s keep St. Valentine’s sacrifice in mind as an example this Lenten season.
About The Contributor
