The true message about Valentine’s Day

Everything we know about Saint Valentine we owe to the writings of Venerable Bede, the Benedictine monk of northern England who straddled the 7th and 8th centuries. Because he wrote the first history of the English people, Bede is considered the father of English history. But to our point, he also wrote the “Legenda Aurea,” – the Golden Legend – which told the lives of the saints. It’s there that we learn the story of Saint Valentine. According to that version, St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by the Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this Claudius ordered his execution and threw him into the prison in Rome to await his fate.

No one knows how long Valentine spent in the Mamertine before his execution, but it’s safe to say it wasn’t an overnight stay. Against this backdrop of extended, unjust and cruel imprisonment, torture and execution that the Legenda Aurea tells this story of Valentine’s last day:… then he prayed to God, saying: Lord Jesus Christ very God, which art very light, enlumine this house in such wise that they that dwell therein may know thee to be very God. And the (jailer) said: It marveled me that thou sayest that thy God is very light, and nevertheless, if he may make my daughter to hear and see, which long time hath been blind ….

Bede’s history goes on to say that Valentine, his heart filled with compassion and forgiveness for the jailer and his long-blind daughter, restored her sight through intercessory prayer. A later embellishment to the Golden Legend adds that on the evening before his execution, Valentine wrote a note addressed to the young girl. The note allegedly signed “from your Valentine.” From the thin thread of that apocryphal signature spins the association of Saint Valentine with romantic love. Lost in the telling is the far more compelling story of Valentine’s compassion and unconditional forgiveness.

Certainly that’s the lesson of the Saint Valentine story. In the face of his unjust and torturous imprisonment and execution, does he call down the wrath of a justice-wielding? No. He took compassion on his jailer and called forth healing mercy to cure the jailer’s long-blind daughter – no strings attached. That’s the lesson held up to us as the model in all the lives of the saints. Divine love and forgiveness is unconditional, and we are all invited to take the spiritual journey to that place in our own hearts.