The month of love is upon us and I know it is met with mixed feelings. I am personally not a fan, and it isn’t a shock that a person wouldn’t like the holiday, but I just can’t seem to find sincerity in Valentine’s Day.
The history of this day is murky, and there happen to be three different Valentines who could be “the” Valentine. I know: I checked online.
According to history.com, the legends behind the man all stem from Rome. One legend states that an emperor with low numbers in his army attributed the cause to young men who were unwilling to leave their wives and lovers behind, so he outlawed the marriages of young couples. Valentine, upset with this reform, continued to conduct marriages for the couples in secret, and when he was discovered, he lost his head. But just before his death on Feb. 14, Valentine wrote his love, presumed to be the jailer’s daughter, a letter that ended with the words “from your Valentine.”
The second legend is that the Roman Catholic Church wanted to “Christianize” the pagan fertility festival Lupercalia, which starts Feb. 15, so it dedicated a feast day to St. Valentine the day before. The third Valentine lacks a story, but it is believed that the bird-mating season in England and France starts on Feb. 14. After all of this the exchanging of letters became popular from the Middle Ages on.
Some of the meaning behind the day is sweet. Love prevails in the face of persecution, and all share their untold true feelings with loved ones. But that is not the day we celebrate anymore.
What comes to my mind when I think of Valentine’s Day is Victoria’s Secret commercials (gag me), really cheesy cards that never say what I really want to say and shiny things. I don’t remember the day to connote true love, and that makes me sad.
Love is the strongest of emotions and words, the binding agent of all humanity and the reason God still puts up with us, and instead we cover it in pink, red and sex … neat.
I want to encourage the show of love every day with sincerity, and if it is to have a holiday then we should treat it with respect.
Peter wrote, “having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart” (1 Peter 1:22, ESV).
