St. Valentine
Let me be clear. I didn’t write this, but I love this story so much I wanted to share it with you all, especially since it is still Valentine’s Day (you’re probably all asleep by now—I had a long and good day). So here goes. Imagine quotation marks around the following.
St. Valentine is referred to as the patron saint of love. Believers say God worked through his life to perform miracles and teach people how to recognize and experience true love. Saint Valentine was a Catholic priest who also had experience as a doctor. He lived in Italy during the third century AD and served the priesthood in Rome.
Most historians don't know much about his early life. During his priestly years he became famous for marrying couples who were in love, but couldn't get legally married in Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius II, who had outlawed weddings. The Roman Empire was a military force spreading all around the Mediterranean area. Claudius was recruiting lots of men to be soldiers in his army and thought that marriage would be an obstacle to recruiting soldiers. He also wanted to prevent his existing soldiers from getting married because he thought that marriage would distract them from their military duties.
Of course, as couples do, they fall in love and want to get married. They would approach Valentine, the priest, in hopes he would marry them. He was willing to oblige When Claudius discovered that Valentine was performing weddings, he ordered Valentine be put in jail. Valentine continued to reach out to people with the love that he said Jesus Christ gave him for others. He befriended his jailer, Asterious, who was impressed with Valentine's wisdom and asked Valentine to help his daughter, Julia, with her lessons. Julia was blind and needed some help. Valentine did help with her lessons. He also prayed with and for Julia and she was miraculously healed of her blindness. Asterious was so impressed with Valentine and with his daughter's ability to see again, he became a Christian.
In the year 269 AD, Valentine was sentenced to a three part execution of beating, stoning, and finally decapitation, all because of his stand for Christian marriage and for failing to renounce his faith as Claudius demanded. He had violated the Emperor's orders. Before he was killed he sent a loving note to the jailer's child, Julia, and the note eventually led to the tradition of sending Valentine's cards. He had signed it "from your Valentine."
So now you know how Valentine's Day came about from a little history lesson. Would that all of us would reach out with the love Jesus Christ gives us for others, just as Valentine did. As we go about on Valentine's Day, let us reach out with a smile, a kind word, a good deed, to any who we pass on our journey today. May love and joy and peace be with you.
Happy Valentine’s Day.