I wrote this a few years back, when this article this new. I'm keeping my reference to it because it serves to introduce the discussion I wrote around it, even though I don't know if it still exists on the intertoobs.
As a chivalric literary historian who has studied the origins of the holiday, I find this a shame. When the notion of Valentine’s Day as a day for romance emerged in the 1380s it was all about love as a natural life force – birds choosing their mates, the freedom to choose or refuse love and the arrival of springtime. But even then many people did not understand or value these things. In fact, that is why it was invented.
Don't start an article like that, then link to a National Geographic article for the assertion that Valentine's Day is "a feast day with ancient pagan roots." Because first, the article doesn't say that, but merely asserts a coincidence between the end of Lupercalia observances in Rome, and the naming of the feast day of St. Valentine. That date is the date of martyrdom for one of the three St. Valentine's mentioned in the martyrology (there was also a Pope Valentine). But don't do it mainly because even Wikipedia is going to tell you you're wrong.
Closer to home, after a long contest Gelasius finally suppressed the ancient Roman festival of the Lupercalia, which had persisted for several generations among a nominally Christian population. Gelasius' letter to the Senator Andromachus treated the primary contentions of the controversy and incidentally provided some details of the festival, which combined fertility and purification, that might have been lost otherwise. Although the Lupercalia was a festival of purification, which had given its name "dies februatus", from "februare" ("to purify"), to the month of February, it was unrelated to the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also commonly denominated "Candlemas", which latter feast commemorates the fulfillment of the Holy Family's ceremonial obligations pursuant to Mosaic law 40 days after the birth of the first son. In the instance of the Holy Family, that occurred 40 days after Christmas, scire licet, on 2 February.
Candlemas, from the second day of this month, is more often connected to the observance of Lupercalia than is February 14th. The connection seems to be between the Latin for "purify" and the name of the month; and because almost nobody on the intertoobs has heard of Candlemas. Wikipedia also says there is a "literary connection" between Lupercalia and February 14 through Chaucer; which is not to say, through history. To put all of this is in more proper (and frankly, tedious) historical context, we turn to New Advent:
Forty days after the birth of Christ Mary complied with this precept of the law, she redeemed her first-born from the temple (Numbers 18:15), and was purified by the prayer of Simeon the just, in the presence of Anna the prophetess (Luke 2:22 sqq.). No doubt this event, the first solemn introduction of Christ into the house of God, was in the earliest times celebrated in the Church of Jerusalem. We find it attested for the first half of the fourth century by the pilgrim of Bordeaux, Egeria or Silvia. The day (14 February) was solemnly kept by a procession to the Constantinian basilica of the Resurrection, a homily on Luke 2:22 sqq., and the Holy Sacrifice. But the feast then had no proper name; it was simply called the fortieth day after Epiphany. This latter circumstance proves that in Jerusalem Epiphany was then the feast of Christ's birth.
I interrupt here to note the significance of the original day for the observance of the purification story from Luke. This would have been centered on the observance of Epiphany as the day to celebrate the Christ Mass; i.e., 12 days after the current date of Christmas, December 25. Now we move on:
From Jerusalem the feast of the fortieth day spread over the entire Church and later on was kept on the 2nd of February, since within the last twenty-five years of the fourth century the Roman feast of Christ's nativity (25 December) was introduced. In Antioch it is attested in 526 (Cedrenus); in the entire Eastern Empire it was introduced by the Emperor Justinian I (542) in thanksgiving for the cessation of the great pestilence which had depopulated the city of Constantinople. In the Greek Church it was called Hypapante tou Kyriou, the meeting (occursus) of the Lord and His mother with Simeon and Anna. The Armenians call it: "The Coming of the Son of God into the Temple" and still keep it on the 14th of February (Tondini di Quaracchi, Calendrier de la Nation Arménienne, 1906, 48); the Copts term it "presentation of the Lord in the Temple" (Nilles, Kal. man., II 571, 643). Perhaps the decree of Justinian gave occasion also to the Roman Church (to Gregory I?) to introduce this feast, but definite information is wanting on this point. The feast appears in the Gelasianum (manuscript tradition of the seventh century) under the new title of Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The procession is not mentioned. Pope Sergius I (687-701) introduced a procession for this day. The Gregorianum (tradition of the eighth century) does not speak of this procession, which fact proves that the procession of Sergius was the ordinary "station", not the liturgical act of today. The feast was certainly not introduced by Pope Gelasius to suppress the excesses of the Lupercalia (Migne, Missale Gothicum, 691), and it spread slowly in the West; it is not found in the "Lectionary" of Silos (650) nor in the "Calendar" (731-741) of Sainte-Geneviève of Paris. In the East it was celebrated as a feast of the Lord; in the West as a feast of Mary; although the "Invitatorium" (Gaude et lætare, Jerusalem, occurrens Deo tuo), the antiphons and responsories remind us of its original conception as a feast of the Lord. The blessing of the candles did not enter into common use before the eleventh century; it has nothing in common with the procession of the Lupercalia. In the Latin Church this feast (Purificatio B.M.V.) is a double of the second class. In the Middle Ages it had an octave in the larger number of dioceses; also today the religious orders whose special object is the veneration of the Mother of God (Carmelites, Servites) and many dioceses (Loreto, the Province of Siena, etc.) celebrate the octave.
The Christian liturgical calendar centered first on the date for observing Easter. We don't need to go deeply into those weeds to consider that celebrations like Christmas came along much later in the life of the church; the fourth century, in fact. It is from the date set for Christmas that the 40 days to the purification is set on the calendar as February 2. The date for celebrating Candlemas was not established in the church universal for centuries, though. It doesn't appear until long after the brief pontificate of Gelasius. The point of this long quote is to once again establish the complexities of history, especially liturgical calendar history, and try to separate it from the oversimplification of "experts" on the internet. Or, as I've said before, of the Puritans who were determined to connect all things "Popish" with "pagan rituals," the better to discard it. They had an agenda, in other words, and their conclusions, and arguments, are not to be regarded as valuable.
Sorry, I'm a bit of a nerd about this stuff. And speaking of the Christian liturgical calendar and St Valentine (one of three, anyway):
And the shrine of St. Valentine, in Whitefriar Street Church, Dublin:On #ValentinesDay2022, the skull of St Valentine in S. Maria in Cosmedin #Rome pic.twitter.com/pIQYn6NOrW
— Wanted in Rome (@wantedinrome) February 14, 2022
Throughout the centuries since Valentine received martyrdom there have been various basilicas, churches and monasteries built over the site of his grave. Therefore, over the years, many restorations and reconstructions took place at the site.In the early 1800’s, such work was taking place and the remains of Valentine were discovered along with a small vessel tinged with his blood and some other artefacts.In 1835 an Irish Carmelite by the name of John Spratt was visiting Rome. Apparently his fame as a preacher had gone before him, no doubt brought by some Jesuits who had been in Dublin. The elite of Rome flocked to hear him and he received many tokens of esteem from the doyens of the Church. One such token came from Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846) and were the remains of Saint Valentine.On November 10, 1836, the Reliquary containing the remains arrived in Dublin and were brought in solemn procession to Whitefriar Street Church where they were received by Archbishop Murray of Dublin. With the death of Fr Spratt interest in the relics died away and they went into storage. During a major renovation in the church in the 1950s/60s they were returned to prominence with an altar and shrine being constructed to house them and enable them to be venerated. The statue was carved by Irene Broe and depicts the saint in the red vestments of a martyr and holding a crocus in his hand. Hand-painted replicas of this statue are available in our Church Shop.Today, the Shrine is visited throughout the year by couples who come to pray to Valentine and to ask him to watch over them in their lives together. The feast-day of the saint, February 14, is a very popular one.
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