By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
A rather simple word—love—is at the heart of St. Valentine’s Day. Yet, what’s most clear about the popular February holiday is that it’s complicated, both historically and even in my own boyhood memories.
Although there may have been three or more St. Valentines (the name means “worthy or strong”), the one most associated with the holiday was a third century clergyman who ministered to persecuted Christians in the Roman Empire.
The Romans beheaded him on February 14 in either the year 269 or 270. That date became St. Valentine’s feast day on the Catholic church calendar when he was canonized in the year 496.
About a thousand years later, a day honoring a religious martyr started to become a global celebration of romance and love. How in the world did that happen?
In the fifth century, the reigning Catholic pope probably wanted to downplay the festival of Lupercalia. Each February, the Romans celebrated this popular but lascivious pagan holiday promoting fertility.
St. Valentine’s Day was a logical and somewhat parallel alternative.
Legend says Valentine performed secret weddings for soldiers whom the emperor had said could not marry. To remind them of their vows and God’s love, Valentine gave them hearts he had cut out of parchment.
This covert ministry got Valentine arrested and then executed for not renouncing his Christian faith. According to the legends, before he died Valentine wrote a kind letter to the daughter of his jailer and signed it “Your Valentine.”
Notwithstanding this legendary but excellent foundation, it was English poets who supercharged the St. Valentine’s Day celebration as we know it today.
In the late fourteenth century, Geoffrey Chaucer (famous for The Canterbury Tales) wrote a poem called “Parliament of Fowls.” He associated St. Valentine’s Day with romance and the “love birds” of early spring.
According to Smithsonian Magazine, soon “nature-minded European nobility began sending love notes during bird-mating season.” A French duke imprisoned in London even wrote to his wife in February 1415 and called her his “very gentle Valentine.”
In the late 1500s, William Shakespeare added to the holiday magic. The great composer of love lyrics (Sonnet 18: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”) mentioned St. Valentine’s Day in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and—rather darkly—in “Hamlet.”
In eighteenth century England, couples started expressing mutual love each February with flowers, candy, and cards known as “valentines.” In 1913, the Hallmark company introduced the mass-produced St. Valentine’s Day greetings we know today.
The most memorable St. Valentine’s Days of my youth were almost as complicated as the holiday itself, involving either too little or too much love.
I attended five different elementary (K-6) schools, three during the same tumultuous fourth grade year when my parents got divorced. At my third/final fourth grade venue, I was unsure of my place in a spinning and dizzying world.
Right on schedule, however, Valentine’s Day arrived. I’d always enjoyed the holiday, not necessarily for romance but due to the abundance of candy and pink frosted sugar cookies.
In early February, our school teacher gave us a homework assignment. We had to bring in Valentine cards.
We also had to find an old shoebox, cut a slot in the lid to create a mailbox-type receptacle, and decorate it in the spirit of the February 14 festival.
The card part was easy—we got them at the store from Hallmark. Mine featured Snoopy or Bugs Bunny, and offered pithy greetings like “Happy Valentine’s Day” or the dangerously generic “Be Mine.”
My mother supplied raw materials for the box—white and red construction paper, pink crepe paper, glue, and scissors. She helped, but made me do the bulk of the work.
My box was reasonably good for a nine year old. At school the next day, however, I realized some of my classmates either were professional designers or got a lot more help from their parents than did I.
We took turns delivering our Valentine’s mail. I gave a card to everyone. We then rushed to retrieve our boxes.
The first card I read said, “Ours is a strange and wonderful relationship.” Well, that’s intriguing, I thought to myself, but then I read on—“You’re strange and I’m wonderful.”
Suddenly, the girl with the most elaborately (and professionally) decorated box announced to anyone within earshot that she had not given everyone a Valentine. Why? Who knows! Perhaps she just wanted to be authentic about to whom she offered her holiday affection.
Not one fourth grade soul, however, interpreted her comments that way. Now we dreaded looking at the rest of our cards, fearful we’d be marked with a scarlet “E” for exclusion.
I reached the last card in my box with still no sign of anything from her. Yet, with one card left, there was hope.
I opened it. It was from a male classmate. I was one of the odd ones out.
Years later, as a parent, I had a PTVD (post traumatic Valentine’s Day) disorder moment when I got a note from one of our child’s teachers outlining instructions for the class Valentine’s Day party.
I opened and read it with apprehension. At the end the teacher wrote and underlined, “Students must provide a Valentine card for everyone in the class.” I was relieved.
Perhaps MLK’s observation that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” is true for small matters too.
At my fifth grade St. Valentine’s Day celebration, I encountered the exact opposite scenario of what I had faced in fourth grade.
The basics were the same—class party, decorated shoe box, and store-bought mini cards. Happily, the Little Miss Exclusivity who’d ruined the previous year’s party had moved away.
After the ritual distribution, I got my box and started to read the cards. Most had only a first name scrawled on the back.
One, however, included a postscript. Right next to the girl’s signed name, I saw the handwritten words “love me.”
Yikes! My underdeveloped prefrontal cortex did not know how to react to this unexpected message of affection.
I did not know the girl well, rarely talked with her, had no idea she had any feelings for me, and did not have similar feelings for her.
I navigated this rather complex social scenario in typical ten year old boy fashion. I avoided it.
I ignored the apparent overture. She and I never spoke of it, and never really talked about anything else either.
Today, I don’t remember the names of my fifth grade classmates. Yet, I still recall this kind and rather brave expression of affection and the name of the girl who gave it to me.
It really is a gift when someone says they love you. I hope my immature response did not cause her too much distress.
Like almost everything else associated with his holiday, the facts of St. Valentine’s final resting place are not simple either. There’s not one resting place, there’s almost a dozen.
Most of his remains are buried in St. Anton’s Church in Madrid, Spain. A pope gave them to a Spanish king in the 1800s. St. Valentine’s skull is displayed—covered with flowers—in a Roman church.
Other pieces of the saint (or of the contemporaries who shared his name) are scattered in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, France, Scotland, Malta, and even on the Greek Island of Lesbos.
Certain Valentine relics also can be found in Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin. The small sanctuary has become a bit of an off-the-beaten-path pilgrimage site for those looking for love.
This means that each February someone travels to a nondescript Irish church and asks an unmarried Roman Catholic priest, martyr, and saint who died over 1700 years to intercede today and help them find love in the ultra-modern twenty-first century.
Like I said. St. Valentine’s Day…it’s complicated.
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022.
