Feast of St. Valentine

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

AM Psalm 89:1-18 • PM Psalm 89:19-52
Gen. 30:1-24 • 1 John 1:1-10 • John 9:1-17

I remember all too well the day of 1969 when Pope Paul issued to all the world his Mysterii Pascalis whereby our favorite saints were demoted and, according to some of us, suffered a second martyrdom. In authoritative Latin prose, he demoted St. Christopher (patron saint of travelers, whose medallion hung from windshield mirrors and protected devout Catholics wherever they drove), Saint George (dragon slayer and patron saint of England), St. Nicolas (Santa Claus), and St. Valentine. But thanks be to God, we’re Episcopalians, and we still celebrate the Feast of St. Valentine, which is today. And adults and children still send valentines to each other.

Nevertheless, great literature doesn’t generally supply happy endings for valentines. The fifteenth-century poet Charles of Orleans wrote the first valentine poem I know of, which seems to begin happily: “When fresh Phoebus’ day of St. Valentine/ had whirled his golden chariot aloft,” but whose first stanza ends with the news that the speaker has had a bad night “upon my bed so hard of troubled thought.” Every bird that has awakened him from this hard bed, he realizes, has a valentine, that is, a lover, while he alone lacks one, because his mistress has died.

In the only novel I can remember where a valentine card appears, it’s a practical joke rather than a gift from the heart. In Chapter 13, “... The Valentine,” of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd, the beautiful Bathsheba Everdeen sends a valentine to the handsome, self-confident and self-sufficient Mr. Boldwood, and she “idly and unreflectingly” seals it with the wax imprint, “Marry Me.” The valentine first brings Bathsheba to his notice; her beauty makes him fall in love, then obsesses him, then drives him mad; and Bathsheba is deeply humbled by his tragedy.

The moral of this Reflection is this: our God is not the pagan jokester cherub Cupid, but the real, super-existent God of Love. Indeed, God is love, as John, in the first of his three epistles, proclaims three times. So let us send only well-intentioned messages of love, and offer love and sympathy to those who have no valentines because of death or break-up or dumb luck. And let us wake from whatever bed of troubles that disturb our thoughts at night to a new day, which will be God’s personal valentine to each of us.

Written by John DuVal

Happy St. Valentine’s Day! For his valentine’s gift to you all, John has printed Charles of Orleans’ valentine poem (somewhat modernized) below:

Saint Valentine Ballade

Whan fresshe Phebus day of seynt valentyne
Had whirled his golden chariot aloft
The burnyd beams of it began to shyne
In my chambre where I slepéd soft,
Of which the light that he had with him brought,
He woke me from my slepe of hevynes
Wherin I slepéd alle the nyght doubtless
Upon my bed so hard of troubled thought.

Of which this day to share their prizes
A host of birds assembled in a croft.
Within my sight, they sang requests in Latin
To have with them as nature had them wrought
Their mates to wrap them in their winges soft
For which they ’gan so loud their cries to dress
That I could not slepe in my distress
Upon my bed so hard of troubled thought.

Then I began to rain tears from mine eyne
Upon my pilowe, to wayle and cursen oft
My destyny and ’gan my look enclyne
Upon my these birds, and seid, “ye birds, you ought
To thanke Nature (whereas it suiteth me nought)
That you have mates for your great happiness
While I grieve for the death of my mistress
Upon my bed so hard of troubled thought.

All’s well for him this day that hath caught
A valentyne that lovyth him as I gesse
Alone, to me that comfort I address
Upon my bed so hard of troubled thought.