Valentine's Day has been primarily a day to celebrate human romantic love, right?
Well, not quite.
The Feast of Saint Valentine was created to honor someone believed to have been a martyr-priest in Rome in the third century. Records of when and by whom he was named a saint are unclear, at best. It appears he began to be commemorated in the Catholic Church on February 14, understood to be the day of his burial, at some point in the 8th century.
Multiple stories circulated about Fr. Valentine's life, ministry and martyrdom. Some claim he was a priest in Rome, while others speak of him being a bishop in Terni, and others of a layperson martyred in Africa. Some claim his execution happened because he would marry Christian couples secretly to help the husbands evade service in the Roman army. In a related story, Fr. Valentine was said to give a heart-shaped parchment to the new husbands to remind them to be faithful to their new wives. Others claim his martyrdom occurred because he attempted to convert the emperor, who then had him executed.
There are also various stories involving the daughter of a jailer. In one, Fr. Valentine cures her of blindness, leading the jailer to convert to Christianity and release all of his Christian prisoners. In others, he sent her a note signifying his affection for her (not necessarily amorous), signing it, "From your Valentine."
Careful investigation into this mishmash of stories ultimately led the Catholic Church to remove Valentine from the regular calendar of saints in 1969, though a Saint Valentine remains listed among the saints, the one alleged to have been buried on the Via Flaminia in Rome after his execution. In the United States, the US Council of Catholic Bishops has redesignated February 14 as the Feast of Cyril and Methodius, missionaries to Moravia and Russia.
Centuries later, alongside the official church observance of a third century Christian martyr arose cultural practices connecting the day with a celebration of human romantic love via either the secret marriage stories or the jailer's daughter stories, or both. Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. composed in the late 14th century, recounts some of these legends and practices, indicating they may have been in circulation and some practice in England by that time.
Given all the confusion, conflation of stories, much later involvement of practices related to romantic love associated with this day and the removal of whoever this Saint Valentine was from the Catholic calendar, is there any reason for United Methodists to continue to observe it at all?
As any sort of religious observance of a specific person, clearly not. United Methodists tend not to commemorate saints on any regular basis in the first place. Currently, the United Methodist Church officially recognizes two martyrs: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and that is all. There is plenty of verifiable documentation of the lives, actions, and deaths of these people, in stark contrast to the unverifiable and contradictory evidence presented for the St. Valentine who was the object of this particular feast day.
And do we need all the candy, cards, and pressure our culture may promote on this day? Probably not.
But human romantic love is certainly worthy of celebration. United Methodists "affirm human sexuality as a sacred gift" (2020/2024 Book of Discipline, Paragraph 162.III.C). Perhaps, since United Methodists acknowledge human romantic love as a sacred gift, prayers of gratitude to God and other enacted signs of thankfulness and care for our romantic partner, if we have one, may be a better choice.
February 14 can provide the backdrop and the opportunity. But it's up to each couple to supply the most meaningful content.
Burton Edwards is serves as Lead for Ask The UMC, the information service of United Methodist Communications.
