Feb 14, 2014

Be My Valentine?

St. Valentine_fol.197 croppedOne of the great advantages of being a priest is that you can give your beloved leftover funeral flowers for Valentine's Day. Jam some candle nubs that don't really fit into your candelabra and set them on your table alongside some stale donuts from last Sunday's coffee hour and voila! A romantic, low-cost dinner. I'm kidding, of course. As far as Bryna knows.

But if you really want to spice things up with your Valentine tonight, try this: show up to dinner at that cozy bistro dressed as the martyred St. Valentine. He was evidently beaten and stoned before his beheading at the hand of the Roman emperor for marrying couples in the Christian faith. So, depending on how realistic you want to make this, it might get a bit messy. Perhaps a simple Steve Martin arrow-through-the-head prop would suffice. Though maybe you should just stick to the roses and either borrow a red cassock from the acolyte room or, if you're a priest, wear that seldom-used red chasuble hanging in the back of the sacristy closet.

1506575_10152253412466354_588056348_nAs we celebrate Valentine’s Day, it's helpful to reflect upon the real St. Valentine. Actually, there’s some confusion over this since there appears to have been more than one St. Valentine. The feast of St. Valentine was first established in 496 to mark the death of a St. Valentine on February 14th. But even then it seems to have been a day to mark several martyred saints sharing the name Valentinus (from the Latin valens meaning worthy).

Nonetheless, the modern feast day likely commemorates the St. Valentine who was a priest in Rome during the reign of Claudius II (260-270 AD). He was arrested for marrying Christian couples and assisting those facing persecution – a crime in those days. Valentine tried to convert the emperor and was put to death.

It wasn’t until 14th century England that the feast started to become a celebration of romantic love. The poet Geoffrey Chaucer is often credited with bringing together the romantic imagery of blooming spring and birds choosing their mates. In The Parliament of Fowles Chaucer’s was the first mention of St. Valentine in a love poem.

None of this should actually matter to Episcopalians since Valentine doesn't appear on our official Calendar of Saints. Indeed we commemorate Cyril and Methodius on February 14th -- a pair of 9th century Greek brothers who were missionaries to the Slavs -- rather than Valentine.

The good news in this for forgetful husbands/boyfriends is that if you forget to pick up flowers, you can always give your beloved a copy of War and Peace by Slavic author Leo Tolstoy or dramatically read a poem by Vaclav Havel.

4 comments:

Meredith Gould said...

Have a good laugh on/at me: I'm one of those crazy people who got married on Valentine's Day which, when I got divorced from Mr. What Was I Thinking, forever trashed the day. Well, maybe not forever trashed. I've redeemed it by meeting with my tax accountant.

Father Tim said...

Yes, for some Valentine's Day is bittersweet. Not get-beheaded-bittersweet but not much fun.

wendythreads said...

Too funny, but he better not give me Tolstoy's War and Peace as I already have it in Russian.

Jay Croft said...

In Russian?

But true believers will tell you that Tolstoy wrote War and Peace in English in 1611. All other versions are flawed and heretical.