Who is St. Valentine?

I have always been a big one on learning the true meaning of holidays and talking about them with our kids. Why do we celebrate the things we do? What is this holiday even for? You would be amazed at the origins of some of the holidays we celebrate. Today, Valentine's day is a holiday of love and romance, but what started it all? Who really was this St. Valentine?

As many of our holidays do, St. Valentine's Day derives from the Pegan/Roman festival Lupercalia, a fertility celebration that was observed on February 15th. On the eve of this festival, the names of all the young girls were written on slips of paper and put into jars. Each young man would then draw a name and that is who they spent the duration of the festival with and sometimes for the whole year or longer. With the rise of Christianity, and the feeling that pegans needed to be converted and their evil ways corrected, they took many of their traditions and converted them to Christian holidays. But, why St. Valentine?

There really is some debate as to the true Valentine behind our holiday today. One Legend is of a priest who served during third century Rome. Claudius II was the Emperor during that time and believed that single men made better soldiers. To increase the power of his army he made it against the law for young men to marry. Valentine thought that this law was unfair, so he chose to marry young couples secretly. Of course Claudius II eventually found out about Valentine's betrayal and had him sentenced to death.

Our second legend is of an imprisoned man, named Valentine, who fell in love with his jailers daughter. Right before he was put to death he wrote a letter to his love and signed it "Your Valentine". This, of course, is still how our Valentine's cards are signed today.

Whoever is the beloved Valentine behind our holiday today, they are both a reminder to be bold in the face of love, because love my friends is what it is all about.