Reality Bite
Who was St. Valentine and why do we celebrate him? I’ve known the story for
most of my adult life, but it surprised me when I mentioned the sheer fact of his
story and they hadn’t a clue it had been so gory, and so violent.
No, he wasn’t the patron saint of roses and candy. That’s cupid’s job, right?
So I’ve done my research to bring you a little history lesson.
In or around the year 278 A.D., in Rome under the cruel and bloody rule of Em-
peror Claudius II, a young holy priest named Valentine had decided to go against
the new strict law that soldiers were not allowed to wed. Claudius believed the
reason men were unwilling to join his army was because of their strong attach-
ment to their wives and families.
So he banned marriage for young men. Believing this was an injustice, Valentine
performed marriages in secret.
As all good things do, Valentine’s actions were discovered and he was promptly
arrested and jailed. For days, he was tortured at the bequest of Claudius, and re-
quested to renounce the marriages and stop performing these marriages.
The jailer’s daughter had befriended him and tended to his wounds during this
period, and they became friends. She begged him to renounce the marriages he
had illegally performed but he refused.
He stuck to his guns and was therefore sentenced to death.
He wrote one final letter to the jailer’s daughter and signed it ‘From Your Valen-
tine’. It’s not known if he loved her, or had fallen in love with her, but most
sources state they were simply friends.
On February 14th, 270 A.D. Valentine was put to death, condemned to die by be-
ing beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off.
It was after his death, and most probably, after Emperor Claudius’ rule ended,
that he was named a saint.
Gradually, February 14 became a date for exchanging love messages, poems
and simple gifts such as flowers.
This was compiled from various sources over the years I’ve been reading about it, but there are also some bits
from stories I’ve heard over the years as well. I can’t account for the 100% validity of these sources but I do know
they all say the same thing, he was a priest who illegally married young couples and was killed for it.