I have often wondered how many of us really know the origin of Valentine’s Day and for the purpose of it. Even today there is some confusion of how and when Valentine’s Day started and what was the initial intention of it.
Today we celebrate Valentine’s Day as a day of love and beauty. Valentine hearts are given and traded among peers, red roses are sent to loved ones, and candy is often given as a sweet affection to someone through love or even to a mutual acquaintance.
Many believe that Valentine’s Day started as a pagan celebration by the Romans called the festival of Lupercalia. After reading some material about this festival leaves me wondering how in the world, we could get Valentine’s Day out of the rituals that took place in these times. The sacrifice of goats for fertility and dogs for purification, the young men would take the hides of the goats and cut them into strips and then dip them into sacrificial blood. The young women would then be gently slapped with the strips because it was believed it would make them fertile during the coming year.
The young maidens’ names would be placed into an urn and the young bachelors would draw out one of the names. The two would be paired together for one year to see if they were compatible for each other and many of them united in marriage.
As these marriages took place it started taking men away from their service in the army so Emperor Claudius II banned all marriages so that he could boost his armies. Saint Valentine would secretly perform the marriages until he was discovered and thrown into prison. While he was in prison, he developed a relationship with the jailor’s daughter and the two fell in love. The night before his death sentence was carried out it is said that he left her a note and signed it “your Valentine.”
Back in 496 A.D. St. Valentine’s Day was set on February 14th and replaced the pagan festival Lupercalia which was celebrated on February 15th.
If history is correct, then why do we celebrate Valentine’s Day in our Christian heritage? Maybe it is because we see Valentine’s Day today in a different light than in its beginning. Not many people, such as me, has ever researched this day because it has become a day of love and gifts of love are given to a lot of people, some who least expect it. Maybe it is a time of reconciliation for some families, some marriages, or some friendships. Maybe it is a time for us to re-evaluate the way we look at people and our relationship to God.
The Bible talks about love all through its pages and I know that our God is a God of love. Even though Valentine’s Day started as a pagan day, let’s not worship the day in any way associated with the way it started but let’s observe February 14th as a day of love and treat others the way we want to be treated.
1 Peter 4:8 tells us, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.”
Prayer: Lord God forgive me if I celebrate Valentine’s Day in any way other than love for you and for my fellow man. Thank you for bringing to this modern-day world a Valentine Day of beauty and love and for taking the pagan rituals out of it. Amen.
