| What can we learn from St Valentine? |
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| Friday, 30 January 2009 | |
 One of the first school assemblies that I took when I was a curate was on Valentine’s Day. Inexperienced in asking the right sort of questions, I asked if anyone knew why the day was called Valentines Day. Without a second’s hesitation a hand shot up. I nodded in the direction of the boy who wanted to give the answer. ‘It was named after Rudolph Valentino, who was a great lover,’ I never did work out how a child in the 1970s managed to associate the day with a heart-throb film star who died as a young man in the early 1930s, even though the similarity of the name might suggest a connection. I did, however, learn quickly to ask the right sort of questions in School assemblies.To be fair to the boy, he was not too far off track as the day is indeed about love and more is known about Valentino than Valentine. Valentine’s day is named after a third century priest who lived and worked in Rome, while another Valentine was a second century bishop in Terni, a town seventy miles north of Rome. Over the years the distinction between the two has been lost. Little is known for certain about Valentine, but there is a legend that in the time of the emperor Claudius, young men were forbidden to marry as the emperor thought that this would make for a less effective army if the soldiers wanted to get back to their wives and families. Valentine carried out secret marriages for which he was thrown into jail. Again, according to legend, he had a conversation in which Claudius in which the emperor sought to spare his life if he would convert from paganism to Christianity. He refused and attempted to convert the Emperor. All the legends agree that he was buried outside Rome on the via Flaminia. A further suggestion is that before his death he healed the daughter of his jailer whom he had befriended. The note he wrote to her on the night before his execution was signed ‘from your Valentine’ On February 14th, thousands, probably millions of cards will drop through letter boxes all over the country and in many countries across the world. And while there may be an over supply of printed red hearts on cards and an under supply of red roses resulting in sky high prices, the overarching theme of the day is about love. Wouldn’t it be good if the very best aspects of those messages of love were shared also between countries in conflict with one another; wouldn’t it be good if all the shared dinners were transformed into acts of generosity between those who have means in this world and those who do not; wouldn’t it be good if this day were not only about those who want to be one another’s Valentines, but about reconciliation between nations in conflict, about a fairer sharing of the world’s resources, about giving hope to all who think that life is hopeless. That may seem fanciful; it is certainly a vision of perfection. If we are to achieve that sort of perfection, or even move towards it, the spirit of Valentine’s Day is as good a place as any to start. Yours sincerely,  |
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