From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Saint Valentine’s Day, also known as Valentine’s Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is observed on February 14 each year. It is celebrated in many countries around the world, although it is not a holiday in most of them.
St. Valentine’s Day began as a liturgical celebration of one or more early Christian saints named Valentinus. Several martyrdom stories were invented for the various Valentines that belonged to February 14, and added to later martyrologies.
A popular hagiographical account of Saint Valentine of Rome states that he was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians, who were prosecuted under the Roman Empire. According to legend, during his imprisonment, he healed the daughter of his jailer, Asterius. An embellishment to this story states that before his execution he wrote her a letter signed “Your Valentine” as a farewell. Today, Saint Valentine’s Day is an official feast day in the Anglican Communion, as well as in the Rutheran Church. The Eastern Orthodox Church also celebrates Saint Valentine’s Day, albeit on July 6 and July 30, the former date in honor of the Roman presbyter Saint Valentine, and the latter date in honor of Hieromartyr Valentine, the Bishop of Interamna (modern Terni). In Brazil, the Dia de S?o Valentim is recognized on June 12.
The day was first associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of Courtly love flourished. In 18th-century England, it evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greetings cards (known as “valentines“). Valentine’s Day symbols that are used today include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-produced greetings card legend.
Don Bosco College also observed the Valentine day in style as shown in the pictures below.
What do we learn from the Valentine about true LOVE?…..
Valentine’s Day. The day that happy couples exchange kisses and chocolate and go out for a candle-lit dinner. And unhappy couples feel worse about their marriage than on any other day of the year.
Valentine’s Day generates record-breaking flower sales and the exchange of over a billion boxes of chocolate. It also triggers a dramatic increase in the number of calls made to divorce attorneys. Online searches for “divorce” and “divorce advice” increase by as much as 40 percent in the weeks that surround this supposed celebration of love.
One explanation for this is that unhappily married people hold out through the holidays, and by January or February, they’re ready to act. Another is that Valentine’s Day makes a clear distinction between the haves and have-nots: those who have love and romance (and a dozen red roses) and those who do not.
Valentine’s Day is the relationship equivalent of standing in a fluorescent-lit dressing room trying on swimsuits: every dimple, flaw and bit of flesh out of place is magnified tenfold. The forgotten bill or the snappish attitude, the trash left un-emptied, the “not tonight dears” or the sex that lacks spark — the things that we tolerate (even if just barely) can, on this one loaded day, transform into deal breakers.
Hold any relationship up to an ideal and there will inevitably be ways that it won’t measure up. Assume that one person can be everything we wish for, expect sparkle, pizzazz and unflagging enthusiasm, and the sweet, ordinary aspects of married life can seem second-rate, when they’re not.
For many people, Valentine’s Day can be a pass-fail test of love and devotion and, under such rigorous scrutiny; even some of the best marriages might fail the test.
Valentine’s Day should, instead, be a reminder to focus on what we have, as