Love With A Purpose

Happy Valentines Day Everyone!

Many of us celebrate Valentines Day by buying gifts, writing love notes or going out for an expensive meal. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Today however I wanted to look at the other side of "The Legend of St. Valentine", or one of the St Valentines that are honored every year. There is definitely a deeper more spiritual reason to celebrate or honor those that have gone before us today on February 14^th.

There were several saints that had the name Valentine or Valentinus. Many of them were martyred for their faith.

The ones that are celebrated on February 14^th are:

• Valentine of Rome who was a priest was martyred about AD 269 and was buried on the Via Flaminia. The flower crowned skull.
• Valentine of Terni. He became a bishop and is said to have been martyred during the persecution under Emperor Aurelian. He is also buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different location than Valentine of Rome.
• The third Valentine who was mentioned in early martyrologies in the Catholic Encyclopedia under date of February 14. He was martyred in Africa with a number of companions, but nothing more is known about him.

In other Legend one of the Valentines is said to be a priest near Rome in about the year 270 A.D. This was a time when the church was under great persecution. Valentine’s ministry was to help the Christians escape their persecution.

Marriage was outlawed by the Roman Empire at that time. He is believed to have been performing secret marriages for Christian soldiers who were forbidden to marry. Roman Emperor Claudius II supposedly gave an order to cease marriage ceremonies in order to grow his army, believing that married men would not make very good soldiers.

In this same legend Valentine was said to be reminding Christians of God's love and encouraging them to remain faithful to Christ. It also has been said that St Valentine was persecuted for being a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was quite impressed with Valentine and had a discussion with him. Claudius was attempting to get Valentine to convert to Roman paganism in order to spare his life. Valentine of course refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed.

Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing Julia, the blind daughter of his jailer Asterius. The jailer's daughter and his forty-four-member household (family members and servants) came to believe in Jesus and were baptized.

Saint Valentine is said to have cut out hearts from parchment, giving them to the soldiers and persecuted Christians, a possible origin of the widespread use of hearts on Saint Valentine's Day.

On the evening before Valentine was to be executed, he would have written the first "valentine" card himself, addressed to the daughter of his jailer Asterius, who was no longer blind, signing as "Your Valentine." This expression "From your Valentine" is still used to this day.

John Foxe, an English historian states that Saint Valentine was buried in the Church of Praxedes in Rome, located near the cemetery of St Hippolytus.

According to legend, "Julia herself planted a pink-blossomed almond tree near his grave. Today, the almond tree remains a symbol of abiding love and friendship."

It makes me a little sad to think that the part of this legend that stuck through the ages was the love story part.

Don’t get me wrong I love a good love story, but what about the really powerful part of this story? The part where Valentine stands up to Claudius for his faith. The part where he encouraged believers to stand up for Christ even though they risked persecution. This is by far what stood out so strongly to me. Would you do the same for Christ if you knew you would have to give up your life?

Matthew 16:24-25 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

Love with a purpose! Love God above all else!