News Item: : St. Valentine's Day
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
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Saturday 14 February 2015 - 12:04:56

Collect Prayer, Traditional Missal, St. Valentine, Priest and Martyr: 'Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that we who celebrate the birthday to Heaven of thy blessed martyr Valentine, may, through his intercession, be freed from all the evils that threaten us.''

One thing the traditional calendar and secular materialism agree on is the date of St. Valentine's Day. The difference between the true meaning of this feast and the worldly celebration of romance - and more commonly in our times, of lust - could not, however, be more different.

St. Valentine was a Catholic priest and martyr. The tradition about him makes this saint an important intercessor for these troubled times in the Church and the world.

St. Valentine visited and consoled groups of Christians who had been imprisoned under the persecution by Claudius II. He was caught and sent to the prefect of Rome, who tried to get St. Valentine to renounce his faith. Valentine refused to do so and was beaten with clubs and finally beheaded. The date was 14th February, 270 A.D.

How did this feast come to be associated with romantic love? A hagiographical account in the Nuremberg Chronicle, from 1493, affirmed that Valentine was executed for helping imprisoned Christians, but also suggested that he was condemned for assisting Christian couples to marry against the orders of the state.

It is interesting to note that, in this rather late account, the early evidence of St. Valentine as a helper of persecuted Christians is merged with a presentation of him as a defender of Christian marriage.

This is all a far cry from the secular celebration of romance, in recent times, which has steadily degenerated into a carnival of lust in many places today. 

These themes certainly run counter to the cynical release of the abusive and degrading film 50 Shades of Grey on this day. A number of bishops in the USA have spoken out against this domestication of pornographic violence. Indeed, the United States Bishops' Conference has released a 50 Hues of Holiness campaign to promote the Catholic Church's true teachings on marriage and family life, in the context of self-giving and self-sacrificing love. 

With Western culture sliding so far into destructive nihilism - the 50 Shades of Grey books have sold millions of copies - this again calls to mind the fact that any pastoral treatment of marriage and family needs to be rooted solidly in the dogmas and doctrine of the Church. Had society and vast quarters of the Church not caved in to contraception and abortion, there is no way such a celebration of domestic violence against women - as that film represents - would ever have found such general and widespread acceptance. 

Only Jesus Christ and the graces He gives through the True Faith can preserve the beauty and dignity of human love, marriage and family life, from the chaos of unchastity, disunity, divorce, and selfishness which typify our era. This is because we are a fallen race in need of Jesus Christ the Saviour and the grace He bestows through the Catholic Church. These are the themes the Synod on the Family urgently needs to address. 

Let us conclude today's reflections with the clear teaching of the Council of Trent:-

The Sacrament of Matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the Church. It gives spouses the grace to love each other with the love which Christ has loved His Church; the grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of the spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life (cf. Council of Trent: DS 1799).

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