April 22, 2025
February
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Saint of the Month: St. Valentine
February is also the month of love!
It’s time to recognize the people we love and have loved, now and forever and in the past. Do good works for people, stop by with a dinner, take a loved one out to eat, or bring them a treat, some candy, a heart-shaped box that's both kitschy and lovely.
Remember to say a little prayer to St. Valentine, the patron saint of love!
How many here ever scraped together a little babysitting or yard work money and bought your mother a bottle of eau de toilette or a heart-shaped box of some low-grade chocolate for St. Valentine's Day? Of course you did! She was your first love. And then you grow and look for more love. But, where to look? That's the eternal question!
Say a prayer to St. Valentine and keep your eyes open! Love can come from anywhere.
Saint Valentine was a 3rd-century Roman saint, commemorated in Western Christianity on February 14th and in Eastern Orthodoxy on July 6th. From the High Middle Ages, his feast day has been associated with a tradition of courtly love. He is also a patron saint of Terni, epilepsy and beekeepers.
Saint Valentine was a clergyman – either a priest or a bishop – in the Roman Empire who ministered to persecuted Christians. Although the stories behind Saint Valentine are a bit vague, some legends say that he was a Roman priest who defied Emperor Claudius II, who banned marriage so men would be more willing to go to war, by continuing to marry people in secret, which resulted in Saint Valentine's brutal execution. He was martyred (Valentine was beaten to death with clubs, and then beheaded) and his body buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14th, which has been observed as the Feast of Saint Valentine (Saint Valentine's Day) since at least the eighth century.