Valentine’s Day, February 14th, is the period we reserve to tell our sweethearts that we love them. We do it with flowers, candy, dinner or a night out.
There is a feeling and an assumption that if we make that kind of gesture to someone we love, it should keep us together for at least another year. The power of love is prominent in our belief system as it motivates the way we act at all levels of human endeavor. The power of love is the ultimate characteristic that most colors our humanity. It operates as a way of life that sets us apart from other sentient beings.
The formal expression of love as an institutionalized tradition of intimacy goes all the way back to Greek mythology in the manifestation of Pan, the goddess of sex and fertility and Juno, the Roman goddess of love and marriage. The Roman celebration of these figures was February 13-14th.
The worship of love was a pagan principle designed to make the creation of families more than a mechanical act of sex for reproduction. It offered a major component of a greater sphere of values that has evolved into the notion of human rights in our societies.
The direction of that evolution was confirmed as the basis of Christianity. The sending of Christ to be born as a human was an act of love offered by God to his chosen people.
Jesus’ ministry was about that love and its unconditional character that included voluntary choice leading to redemption. Love, if allowed to grow, had the power to transform the spiritual foundations of a Jewish community long on the los- ing side of history.
When Christianity was extended to the Roman community by St. Paul, the preaching of the gospel began to generate martyrs, victims of persecution. Apostles that had migrated to Rome were among the first to die.
Throughout the first three centuries of the Christian era, martyrs were commonplace. Among them were three priests by the name of Valentine.
The first was St. Valentine of Rome who was martyred in 269 CE. The second was St. Valentine of the Roman province of Africa who died around 270 CE and of whom we know little.
The third was St. Valentine, Bishop of what is now Terni in Italy. He was martyred during the regime of Emperor Auralian in 273 CE.
The concept of love went on to eventually make a full circle and come back to the human intimacy expressed in the Greek and Roman goddesses Pan and Juno. It entered English letters in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, especially Parliament of Fowls (1382) where birds become the symbols of human passion.
Valentine’s Day has become a holiday that celebrates love in intimate and private ways. It is most concerned with bridging the feelings of two people.
The love that Jesus preached during his ministry is also relevant today. Much of that relevancy comes from the fact that as a country, we are having a hard time overcoming our differences.
“Love one another,” an important Christian commandment, is being erased by the constant grind of hateful acts. The resulting divisions threaten America’s standing as a democracy and as a world power.
Valentine’s Day offers an opportunity to set aside the rigors of discord and bring forth the great feeling of loving and being loved that is so characteristic of happy family life. Buy the candy, buy the flowers, take close folks out to dinner and rekindle that special feeling called love.
The views expressed by David Conde are not necessarily the views of laVozColorado. Comments and responses may be directed to news@lavozcolorado.com.
