VALENTINE'S DAY

[Photo: Bones of St. Valentine at Santa Maria in Cosmedin]

Santa Maria in Cosmedin is best known for Bocca della Verita’, the "Mouth of Truth" in its porch. Less known is the fact that it also contains what is believed to be the bones of St. Valentine (skull crowned with flowers and other bone fragments).

According to Catholic.org St. Valentine is the patron of love, young people, and happy marriages.

There are many St. Valentines. According to the same Catholic.org, “Valentine was a holy priest in Rome, who, with St. Marius and his family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He was apprehended, and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome, who, on finding all his promises to make him renounce his faith ineffectual, commanded him to be beaten with clubs, and afterwards, to be beheaded, which was executed on February 14, about the year 270.”

The many St. Valentines has given rise to suspicion that he might be a fiction. But Catholic.org thinks that he “really existed because archaeologists have unearthed a Roman catacomb and an ancient church dedicated to Saint Valentine. In 496 AD Pope Gelasius marked February 14th as a celebration in honor of his martyrdom.”

History Channel explains how St. Valentine’s feast was associated with romance.

“While some believe that Valentine's Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine's death or burial--which probably occurred around A.D. 270--others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine's feast day in the middle of February in an effort to "Christianize" the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.”

“To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat's hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city's bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.”

Since Valentine's day is associated with love, it is a good idea to ask: What is love?

Years ago Boy George attempted to define love. He probably failed for he ended in frustration by just declaring “love is love”.

For those who studied the Christian Becoming Series when they were in 4^th year high school, they might still remember this definition: “Love is the power in us that moves us to go out of ourselves to give of ourselves for the one we love.” The definition does not move one’s heart. But it does give you a measuring stick to determine whether you are loving or not and most of all, in the words of the Bee Gees, how deep is your love.

In 1 Cor 13 we find what has been called “Ode to Love”. It contains St. Paul’s thoughts about love. But since the Bible is inspired, it is also a declaration of how God thinks about love. And with God’s Word in our mind and heart, let us prepare to celebrate Valentine’s day.

If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. 2And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, 5it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, 6it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. 9For we know partially and we prophesy partially, 10but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. 12At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.g 13 So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 

(from the New American Bible)