A Valentine for the World

While the Eastern Church makes scant mention of St. Valentine, here a devout soul has created a contemporary icon to his memory. The skillfully applied gold background suggests: This is one luminous saint! 

While Valentine holds the Book of the Gospels in the crook of his left arm, I'm wondering why the iconographer has not placed a cross in his right hand - the usual indicator of a martyr. Anyway, Valentine's story is convoluted - apparently a third century priest of Rome, then made Bishop of what is today Terni, Italy, he was martyred during the persecution of Claudius. The saint's biographies relate in some detail the movement of his relics from here, to there and everywhere.

He's called the Patron Saint of Lovers, but that seems to me too small, and has given way to the sad reduction of his person to an 18.2 billion dollar candy, flower, jewelry, lingerie, greeting card industry. Eight hundred and fifteen million dollars alone are spent on Pet Valentines! God doesn't give us prophets, saints and bodhisattvas to bump up national economies. 

But years ago I read an account of  Valentine's life that I wouldn't want to forget. It seems that during the persecution of Christians, when many languished in prisons, Valentine was somehow able to get notes and letters smuggled in to them - messages of encouragement, consolation and loving union. Nothing romantic about that, but a fierce determination to get around the obstructors, to the gritty suffering of persons. 

In 1969 there was a major renewal of the Church's liturgical calendar, whereupon saints like Valentine, Christopher, Dymphna and Philomena, were removed from the universal observance of their feast days. It wasn't to say, as some people interpreted, that Valentine didn't exist or wasn't a saint, but that his story didn't warrant a universal celebration.

In a nasty, divided, militarized, terror-world, we could do with a universal Patron of Love. The Church might better have released Valentine from his red-ribbon-shackles, allowing him to be the new model of love: antidote to the world's urgent problems. 

So today, I want to send Valentines to the world - my own notes of heart-awareness and good wish to the persons and places of pain, menace, ignorance and death.

Forgive us holy Valentine,

for the degradation of your charism:

the illuminated sign
of the highway sex shop

offering Valentine Specials.

I send up Valentines
to the mountain top
where the snow leopard lives;
to the sky,
where ducks fly their
ancient migratory way.

I send up Valentines
to the dawn colored clouds;
pray your poisoned rain be
purified.

I send up Valentines
to the encircling satellites;
to the space station pilgrims -
blink back to us
secrets of peace.

I send out Valentines
to the fear-shivering children -
victim carriers of 
heart-breaking,
stomach-churning sins.

I send out Valentines
to my ancestors
in their desperation, 
brokenness,
addiction and fatigue.

I send out Valentines
down deep to sailors 
asleep in ocean trenches;
soldiers absorbed into the
soil of forests and fields.

I send out Valentines
to secreted places,
the womb,
the residuum,
the places we call God-forsaken,
in truth, human-forsaken;
heart-sentences
of solidarity
kiss and caress.

I send out Valentines
to the heartbeats I hear
thousands of miles away:
notes of happiness,
healing, 
wholeness and life.


Father Stephen P. Morris

Saint Valentine ~ Priest and Martyr

Valentine with Gospels ~ Receiving the Martyr's Crown 

SAINT VALENTINE IS ONE OF THE SAINTS removed from the universal calendar reforms of  1969. I think that's unfortunate as we're so inclined to forget love or to get love wrong - why drop a martyr-saint whose life and death might help the culture to understand love rightly?

In his book All Saints - Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time, Robert Ellsberg offers a brief teaching on the life of Saint Valentine.

The association of St. Valentine with pink hearts, boxes of chocolates, and the exchange of romantic  fancies has no intrinsic source in the character or life of the saint. The origin of "St. Valentine's Day" - a day beloved of greeting card companies - is not entirely clear, but it seems to have taken root in England, a cold country where the signs of spring are eagerly anticipated. As far back as Chaucer it was commonly observed that birds began to pair and mate around the feast of St. Valentine, that is, from the middle of February.

In any case, the Valentine whose name is oddly commemorated was apparently a Christian priest in Rome who assisted martyrs during the persecution under Emperor Claudius II. He was eventually arrested and was beaten and beheaded.

Thus by offering his heart, he proved himself a true devotee of the God of Love.

The name Valentine (in Latin Valentinus) comes from valorem = value, and tenens = holding. So the name of the saint means holding the value or persevering in the value. What value? The truth of Christ. Goodness. His love for others in trouble. Christian holiness. Faith. 

Valentine might have been kept on the Universal Church Calendar for this reason alone - he encourages us in the struggle to hold the value. In Nigeria, Catholics risk death when they step out of their homes to go to Mass. I served in a Church where over a third of the Sunday congregation regularly walked out of the church with the host in their mouths - to be the first out of the parking lot. Talk about forfeiting the value!

But not to end on a polemical or sour note - let's keep St. Valentines Day with some conversation about naming the true value (not to be confused with the offerings of hardware store) and how we might more deeply hold it in perseverance.