Valentine’s Day honors self-sacrifice
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Editor,
If I were to ask you what St. Valentine’s Day is about what would your answer be? If you said “love” or “romance” you would be very wrong. The holiday is about self-sacrifice.
Now I’m no historian, but I want to share what I do know about the origins of St. Valentine’s Day. To do that we have to go back quite a bit, around 270 A.D.
Picture the Roman Empire. The emperor in reign at the time was Claudius II. Claudius II passed a law that made marriage illegal, particularly for those in the army. Claudius felt that marriage was a distraction to his soldiers, keeping them from focusing on conquering more lands for his empire.
But there was a priest named Valentine who knew the emperor’s reasoning was faulty. Valentine was a just and devout Christian, very authentic in his faith. He knew that marriage, far from distracting the soldiers, gave them greater focus because they had something worth fighting for and a reason to come back home. But beyond that he knew that marriage is the foundation of the family, and the family is the backbone of civilization, of society. Valentine didn’t do anything remarkable or extraordinary. He simply just kept marrying off the soldiers.
Meanwhile Claudius, believing his new law would give the men greater incentive to join the army, was baffled to discover that fewer men were enlisting. He also wondered how his soldiers kept getting married despite his new law. After searching, his investigators informed him of Valentine. Valentine was pursued and finally captured and imprisoned.
When Valentine was brought before Emperor Claudius, he was given two choices. Both renounce his faith in Christ Jesus and stop performing marriage ceremonies or face execution. Valentine was executed very shortly thereafter. He died on the 14th of February.
St. Valentine’s Day is all about commemorating a man who gave up his life to preserve marriage.
Leland Rocht
St. Ignatius
