Who was St. Valentine?

On Saturday we celebrate St. Valentine’s Day, the official holiday of romance expressed through such sentiments as flowers, candy and Halmark cards. Did you ever wonder who St. Valentine was and what he (she?) did that made his (her?) name synonymous with love?

Guess what? There isn’t one recognizable St. Valentine! The Roman Catholic Church has come up with a list of three suspects – a priest, a bishop and a martyr – all named Valentine, but can’t really pinpoint which one was the saint. Pope Gelasius I established the feast of St. Valentine’s Day in 496, noting that Valentine was among those “whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God.”

It wasn’t until the Middle Ages, almost a thousand years after Gelasius, that St. Valentine’s Day became associated with courtly love, the medieval notion of chivalry, nobility and admiration and the precursor of today’s romantic love. Courtly love wasn’t exchanged between spouses, however; it was a secret passion for someone you shouldn’t be involved with. Experts differ about whether it was primarily innocent or not. About the same time Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the poem “Parlement of Foules,” which may have been the first association of romantic love with St. Valentine’s Day.

The St. Valentine’s Day we know today – the one that places the love focus on couples --is the product of centuries of smart marketing and advertising. And a special day to highlight the behavior couples should be displaying to each other the other 364 days a year doesn’t seem out of order.

I always feel empathy for single people on St. Valentine’s Day. I used to be single for a long time and remember how alone I felt when everyone else it seemed had flowers on their desks come February 14. You feel the stigma when your desk is bare, but have too much dignity to send yourself flowers. Because the day falls on Saturday this year, people will probably be celebrating it on two days: Friday to get those gifts at work and Saturday for that special date.

So here’s my suggestion for single Christians on St. Valentine’s Day: Have a love retreat with Jesus. After all, true romance – what you can’t purchase at See’s Candy – is about intimacy, and the best way you can learn intimacy is through your relationship with Jesus. On a love retreat you can tell him all the ways you love him, then sit in silence as he tells you all the ways he loves you. Be prepared to be swept away!

Jesus has a love language just for you and secrets he will whisper that only you and he will share. Your relationship with him is special in that no one else relates to him the way you do. He wants to tell you how unique you are to him and wonderful past recounting, but he will still shower you with affirmation about your beauty, and your value, and your importance, and your desirability until your human brain cannot comprehend Jesus’s vision of loveliness which is you.

So much of our prayer lives are about intercession. We worship him for who he is and the things he has done. We enjoy his presence when he inhabits our praises. So why not take a day in which all we do is allow our hearts of love for him to enlarge? A day in which we ask for nothing except how to love him and how to receive his love? A day of learning what devotion to him really looks like?

Let me tell you something that no one talks about but which I think is true: The purity of your love relationship with Jesus as a single person will change slightly once you’re married. It’s not severe, but will be enough of a subtle shift that you will mourn its loss. I think that difference is one of the gifts God bestows on the single Christian lifestyle that makes it not only achievable but something to aspire to. Take advantage of it while you have the chance.

So this Saturday, when so many others are romancing the one they adore, find a secluded place and rhapsodized the One you adore. Then, come Sunday, join the rest of us saints and sinners, single and married alike, as we worship our Savior (whatever that will look like then, thank you, Jess). Take time to really listen to people. Pray for someone. Ask a new person to lunch. Make coffee. Teach Sunday School. Open your wallet. Be part of the all the things we do as a loving community that outshine not only the myths but also the realities of romantic love.

Because wasn’t Pope Gelasius right in choosing to celebrate good men whose acts are known only to God? While February 14 has become the symbol for placing your acts of love in the spotlight, February 15 and all the days that follow should be about the thousands of acts of love that keep the Bride of Christ healthy and functioning but conducted without fanfare or trumpet blasts and sometimes in secret, only for the honor of God.

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”
Romans 12:9