St. Valentine whose feast day we honor every February 14 was a Catholic priest who was martyred in 270 A.D., according to the Roman Martyrology.  He was beaten with clubs and decapitated for instructing others in the Faith.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “… the concept of his feast day being celebrated as ‘Love Day’ evolved from Medieval England (5th – 15th centuries), where it was observed that birds mate in mid-February.  This is perhaps influenced by the fact that 90% of birds are monogamous (with some species even refusing to mate again when the spouse dies).”

Hence, strictly speaking, St. Valentine, Priest and Martyr became the “accidental” patron of lovers.  But we are not expected to behave like birds being human beings endowed by Our Creator with intelligence to decipher right from wrong.  Thus, St. Valentine’s feast day became associated with faithful human love.

I obtained from a friend a prayer for partners in regard to St. Valentine’s Day:

“Loving Father, Almighty God, You created man from your own image and endowed him with the gift of Human Love.  Thank you for the person and the love of my partner; thank you for the joys that made us happy and blessed, and the sorrows that humbled us and made us realize our need for one another.  Continue to bless our partnership, Lord.  May we remain respectful to one another despite our differences, and may we always live in honesty, loyalty and dedication for each other’s good.  Grant us the grace to nourish and nurture Your precious gift of faithful human love.  Deliver us from unfounded doubts, suspicions and jealousy; and protect us from envy and malice of the evil-doers.  These we ask through Christ our Lord, Amen.”

Put in another way, the purpose of Valentine is to know the purpose of love… is to learn the purpose of Jesus’ birth… is to understand the purpose of His crucifixion… is to accept the purpose of His resurrection… is proving the ultimate realization of life everlasting for those who believe in Jesus.  This is the true meaning of Valentine. 

How the important feasts days and most sacred dates of the Church and the Christian world such as December 25, the day Christ was born; and Holy Week in memory of the Passion of Christ’s sufferings leading to Easter Sunday, day of His Resurrection, all lost their true meaning and replaced by more mundane ways is truly regrettable.

Maybe it’s time for us to refocus our lives to be child-like again in our ways for children are endowed by Our Creator with pure hearts, mind and wholesome innocence.  We seem to have forgotten that we were children once upon a time.

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For those who may have wondered why I had no columns for the past two weeks, I was extremely busy attending to my fifth book that I am publishing, “The Cavite Mutiny of 1872,” a book I bought the rights from a renowned Spaniard researcher and author, Dr. Jose Baron-Fernandez; author as well of the book I already published in 1981, “Jose Rizal, Filipino Doctor & Patriot.”

Dr. Jose Baron-Fernandez, was a multi-awarded author and researcher in Europe who authored 14 of his own books as a medical doctor on the circulation of the blood.  He passed away many years ago in Spain.

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