c. 2005 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) It has been 36 years since the Vatican dropped St. Valentine. But the patron of romantic love still claims the devotion of many.
“This is someone about whom we know absolutely nothing,” said Lawrence S. Cunningham, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame and author of the recently published “A Brief History of the Saints.”
Because Roman Catholic scholars could find no evidence that he ever existed, Valentine was removed from the church’s official calendar of saints in 1969. A similar fate befell Christopher, the hugely popular patron saint of travelers.
Yet Valentine has a story that is hard to ignore. Tradition points to at least two martyrs of that name, both killed during the last half of the third century and buried on Rome’s Flamian Way. One, a bishop of what is now Terni, was beheaded because he officiated at Christian weddings despite an imperial ban. The other was a physician-priest; he fell in love with the daughter of his jailer, cured her blindness and left her a note: “With love from your Valentine.”
As for the day itself, tradition dictated that a martyr was honored on the day of his death; both of the legendary Valentines died on Feb. 14. What’s more, Pope Gelasius I supposedly instituted Valentine’s Day to displace a Roman fertility festival, Lupercalia, which began on Feb. 15.
When the saint’s day spread to France and England, its romantic associations were reinforced by the notion that birds choose their mates on Feb. 14. Chaucer’s “Parliament of Fowls” alludes to this belief; it was written for the wedding of Richard II and Anne of Bohemia, generally regarded as one of the most successful and loving unions of the Middle Ages.
Officially, the Roman Catholic Church now reserves Feb. 14 to honor Cyril and Methodius, brothers who evangelized the Slavic countries. But Valentine remains on the church’s roll of martyrs and, like the similarly discredited Christopher, he has an undeniable hold on the popular imagination. A few parishes persist in observing his day.
An important Catholic lay movement, Worldwide Marriage Encounter, has created its own mid-February love fest, World Marriage Day. The observance _ special Masses and lay-organized activities such as dinner dances _ is held on the second Sunday in February; this year that’s the day before Valentine’s Day.
“We’re trying to put him back on the calendar, I guess,” said Sandra Waguespack of Baton Rouge, La. In 1981, she and her husband, Larry, founded World Marriage Day to demonstrate the viability of marriage in an era of rampant divorce.
Lifelong Catholics, the Waguespacks have always looked to the saints for inspiration and intercession. But they were unaware that Valentine had been expunged. And they don’t think it’s important that he probably never existed.
Their reaction doesn’t surprise the Rev. Michael S. Driscoll, an associate professor of liturgy and theology at Notre Dame. He doesn’t think a saint has to be a historical figure.
“I think a saint can be an iconic figure, an icon by which we approach God,” Driscoll said, noting that the Eastern church recognizes many such symbolic figures _ notably Nicholas, the precursor of Santa Claus.
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Driscoll became familiar with Marriage Encounter when he was a diocesan priest in Helena, Mont., and he praises the movement’s emphasis on marriage as sacrament and vocation. Historically, the Roman church regarded marriage as a means of containing and controlling sexuality, a way of life inherently less worthy than the celibacy of priests, monks and nuns.
Even medieval chivalry, which spawned many of the sentimental customs of Valentine’s Day, understood the highest love to be one that was never consummated.
“But I think we’ve come a long way since the Middle Ages,” said Driscoll. He cited Pius XI’s 1930 encyclical on marriage, Casti Connubii, which recognized marriage as “a full-fledged vocation.”
For Cunningham of Notre Dame, sainthood is better conferred only on actual persons _ models of faith and virtue “whose lives can tell us something about how to live.” Like Driscoll, he looks forward to the inclusion of married couples among the saints.
Donna Freitas, professor of religious studies and gender at St. Michael’s College in Burlington, Vt., focuses on another group that Valentine supposedly favored: couples in love.
“We definitely need a patron saint of lovers,” she said. “Single people are craving spirituality and craving relationships.”
The church, she said, offers little guidance for couples who are more than friends but not engaged.
In her new book, “Becoming a Goddess of Inner Poise: Spirituality for the Bridget Jones in All of Us,” Freitas suggests that Jones _ heroine of two hit movies and a series of novels by Helen Fielding _ functions as a saint in popular culture. “Hundreds of thousands of women have connected with her,” she said. “That’s how the saints are supposed to function, as touchstones.”
MO/PH END RNS
