Dipped & Dusted

The Story of St. Valentine

The Roman Emperor Claudius II was fighting many wars. He wanted a strong army, but many men did not want to be soldiers.  Claudius thought the men wanted to stay home to be with their wives and children instead of leaving to fight wars.  Claudius thought of an awful solution to his problem. He decided to cancel all marriages! No one in all of Rome could get married. Claudius thought that if the men couldn’t get married, the men would ignore the women and want to be soldiers. Valentine, who was a priest, believed that people needed to get married. He thought that if they were not married, they would be tempted to sin by living together without being married. So he secretly and illegally married couples anyway! He performed the weddings in secret places, so the Roman soldiers would not find out.

But they did find out. Valentine was arrested and brought before the Emperor. The Emperor thought Valentine was a well spoken and wise young man, and encouraged him to stop being a Christian and become a loyal Roman. Valentine would not deny his beliefs, and he refused. He was sent to prison until he could be executed. While he was in prison,  he fell in love with the jailers daughter. Before he was executed, he sent her a love letter on February 14th, with the words "From your Valentine."  We celebrate Valentine’s Day on February 14th in honor of St.Valentine. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories all emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and--most importantly--romantic figure. By the Middle Ages, perhaps thanks to this reputation, Valentine would become one of the most popular saints in England and France, known as the patron Saint of Love.