Valentine’s Day is a Celebration of LoveBy Maximo Tumbali, Forum ContributorEvery time the month of February sets in, what first comes to mind to most people is Valentine’s Day. This very special day of the hearts always falls on the 14th, and people all over the globe look forward keenly to celebrating it with their loved ones.
Traditionally February is therefore dubbed as the Love Month, during which love relationships take center stage. We thus find sweet couples and lovers preparing themselves with great anticipation for this momentous day, thinking up and looking for fitting gifts to be sent or given personally to their beloved ones come Valentine’s Day itself. And in these days of the Internet, love messages are no longer subject to frustrating delays in delivery as they are now mostly sent and received at instantaneous speed via e-mail, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Messenger.
IMAGE CREDIT: THETRIBUNEVOICE.COM Aside from expressing love and affection on Valentine’s Day, though, there’s likewise a need to reflect on the spiritual significance and meaning of this celebration. The name of this special day is that of the martyred Roman priest Valentine who lived circa 270 A.D.; his natural goodness and benevolence led to his canonization 270 years later as a saint, embodying the virtues of love, sacrifice, and care for people. In his time the notion of love was predominantly spiritual and moral; people in love were expected to be responsible and careful not to allow themselves to fall into immoral sexual practices. To them, love was more of the caring for the well-being of their loved ones and not of treating them as sexual objects by which to satisfy their carnal desires. Lovemaking was to be engaged in only in marriage and not prior to or outside of it.
IMAGE CREDIT: HORRORHISTORY.NETA CHRISTIAN ACCOUNT OF THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. VALENTINE, CIRCA 270 A.D.
For this reason, people in those days celebrated Valentine’s Day by finding ways to renew and strengthen their vows of love. Infidelity was a big taboo. Anyone found committing it was a disgrace to society and, if unlucky, could even face capital punishment. This was the Golden Age of love, a time during which chastity and faithfulness got sternly adhered to.
But all of these were upended by the ever-evolving technical and material progress in human life, resulting in the loss of the sacredness and respect for love in its truest sense. More and more, what commands the attention and fancy of people today are the lures of material things that could excite the physical senses, things that more often border on the sexual and the sensual. Women are now predominantly seen by their male counterparts as objects of sexual desire; it is tempting to presume that men are likewise increasingly being looked upon by their female counterparts in the same way. This mundane practice has been bolstered and even further aggravated by pornography, which is now enshrined by the social media as indispensable and crucial for attaining carnal satisfaction.
These days, therefore, many people celebrate Valentine’s Day as nothing more than a one-day affair for consummating their sensual desires. This is the exact opposite of how Saint Valentine manifested his love, concern, and care for people—the rock of admirable virtues on which Valentine’s Day was founded.
Still and all, Happy Valentine’s Day to one and all!
RELATED READING:Martyrdom of St. Valentine: A Christian Account
