Would You Be Ma Valentine?

Year in and year out, here in Trinidad and Tobago and the world over, we celebrate many annual holidays, from Christmas, to Valentines to Easter and so forth.  As they are celebrated, there is no real distinction between the ones we deem to be pagan in nature, and those that are ‘holy’ and reflective of Jesus Christ and God the Father. As those above mentioned holidays come around, we greet one another ‘Happy’ and the name of the holiday precedes, but do we care to know the root, the origin of or the reason for celebrating these holidays?

They are often masked by smiling faces, giving of gifts and warm compliments, while there is of course the depletion of many bank accounts! It’s a never ending cycle of ‘I’ll hate you today and love you tomorrow’. Christmas was the season of giving gifts and now another one is quickly approaching and it’s Valentines, season of hooking up!

Do I really need to wait an entire year to tell you that ‘I love you’? Where did this Valentine’s day come from? Well readers it stems from Lupercali.

What is Lupercali?

Lupercali was known as a time for purification and fertility by the Romans in ancient time. While reading many historical sites, all seemed to have noted that the said Romans in the first century seem to have also forgotten to whom the holiday Valentines was directed and for what purpose.

It all began when twin boys namely Romulus and Remus were suckled by a she wolf in a cave before they were discovered by a shepherd. (Eww) After being raised by said shepherd, they then decided to build a town of their own when they had reached adult hood. There was a dispute between the two and Romulus decided to kill his brother Remus. He built the city and named it after himself, it was called Roma. Every year some time after that on the 15th of Feburary, Luperci priests gathered at Palantine Hill at the cave of Lupercal (the she wolf that nurtured them). Vestal virgins brought sacred cakes made from the first ears of last year's grain harvest to the fig tree. Two naked young men, assisted by the Vestals, sacrificed a dog and a goat at the site. The blood was smeared on the foreheads of the young men and then wiped away with wool dipped in milk.

The youths then donned loincloths made from the skin of the goat and led groups of priests around the pomarium (the sacred boundary of the ancient city), and around the base of the hills of Rome. The occasion was happy and festive. ( More like barbaric to me).

As they ran about the city, the young men lightly struck women along the way with strips of the goat hide. It is from these implements of purification, or februa, that the month of February gets its name. This act supposedly provided purification from curses, bad luck, and infertility. (Yeah right purify me with the blood of Jesus yes!)

Just like Christmas the church decided to find ecumenical ways of getting the pagan worshipers into the church. According to one of my sources, ‘It was easier to convert the local population if they could continue to celebrate on the same days... they would just be instructed to celebrate different people and ideologies..’ (See why we shouldn’t take things of the world into church?)

The genius Pope Gelasius then decided to officially do away with Lupercali but associate a different man to it. He chose Valentine as the patron saint of lovers, who would be honored at the new festival on the fourteenth of every February. (Aww man! Here we were thinking that it was a time for boyfriends to lavish us with all kinda stuff)

Wait wait it gets more interesting. The church comes up with a LOTTERY whereby all the saints’ names were put into a box and drawn. Whichever one was drawn, for the following year you had to learn and emulate that saint. It was called Lottery of the Saints.

So how does Saint Valentine come into play?

In a nutshell, Valentine was a Rebel in the name of Christiany apparently, and he was hated for the underground movements he had. There was even an account of him curing a guard’s daughter of blindness. Someone ratted on him and told the king and so his execution became pending. (That sucked!)

He was to be beaten by clubs till death then beheaded. Being the romantic that he was , while waiting on the guards he wrote a note to the girl whom he healed, telling her that he loved her and signed it ‘From your Valentine’, and was executed on Feb 14th. There were other Valentines that fought in the name of ‘love’ and I encourage you to read up on their histories.

The church came to realize that no longer was lottery of the saints working hundreds of years later, so they devised another plan. During the medieval days of chivalry, the single's lottery was very popular. Names of English maidens and bachelors were put into a box and drawn out in pairs. The couple exchanged gifts and the girl became the man's valentine for a year. He wore her name on his sleeve and it was his bounded duty to attend and protect her. The ancient custom of drawing names on the 14th of February was considered a good omen for love. (hahaha the first Hallmark Valentine’s Day cards).

That’s how the cards came about of which sells the most, even greater than Christmas ones. Right after followed the chocolate and the candy giving with the stuff toys.

With all this highlighted, how do you feel about the holiday? We cannot be caught up in the world’s system of so called customs and tradition all in the name of ‘preserving culture’, when those cultures had inhumane beginnings.

Nevertheless I would still love to extend well wishes to all of our readers and say, we love you and thank you for your continued support. Continue to help us share the Gospel by sharing these posts.

Written by :

Esther James

 

Features - Opinion