Remembering Saint Valentine on Valentine’s Day
- Paul Simon Julianose
- Feb 16, 2019
- 2 min read
“According to the popular hagiographical identity, and what is believed to be the first representation of St. Valentine, the Nuremberg Chronicle, St. Valentine was a Roman priest martyred during Claudius' reign. The story tells that St. Valentine was imprisoned for marrying Christian couples and aiding Christians being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. Both acts were considered serious crimes…St. Valentine refused to renounce his faith and Christianity and was executed outside the Flaminian Gate on February 14, 269. However, other tales of St. Valentine's life claim he was executed either in the year 269, 270, 273 or 280.”
He was imprisoned for marrying Christian couples and aiding Christians being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. In a time when the institution of marriage is facing overwhelming attacks, I would like to zero in on the former reason for St. Valentine’s eventual arrest and execution. After all, Valentine’s Day is to celebrate the Eros, romantic love.
Let’s see why marrying Christian couples constituted a serious offence in the eyes of Rome at that time. Claudius found marriage unfavorable to Roman soldiers, believing that married men would not fight as valiantly for fear of the fate of the loved ones and family they would leave behind should they be killed. Because of this notion, he placed an edict against the marriage of Roman youth.
Today, the Sacrament of Matrimony, the institution of marriage faces all sorts of attacks such as casual sex, fornication, pre-marital sex, LGBTQ, claiming gender-neutral children, birth control, abortion and so forth. We, Christians need to step up, preserve the sanctity of marriage, in that it exists between one man and woman and is ordered towards creating life.
As Scott Hahn says, the love between God the Father and Son is so perfect that it generates a third person, the Holy Spirit, so must too, the love between man and woman be so authentic that it creates a third person, a newborn child.
Let us imitate Saint Valentine in promoting and defending Christian marriages and call upon his intercessions in face of the various attacks that the institution of marriage faces today.
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