Minister’s letter February 2019
Dear friends,
I have to ask you: do you still send Valentine’s cards on the 14th February to the one that you love best – or is it a tradition only for the young?! (I seem to recall the last Valentine card I received was from the dogs…!)
The Valentine that lent his name to this tradition was a priest who lived in Rome in the third century. Not a lot of concrete facts are known about him but there are various stories and legends. This is one of them:
Emperor Claudius, who ruled at the time, desired to have a large and powerful army. He expected that men would volunteer but, not surprisingly, they didn’t rush to do so. Instead they claimed that they were needed by their wives and families. An enraged Claudius promptly passed a law forbidding marriage.
Despite the law, couples still wanted to get married and Valentine was prepared to take the risk of marrying them in a secret ceremony. Eventually he got caught and was sentenced to death. Whilst awaiting his execution, many young people visited him, throwing flowers and notes up to his prison window to show their support for him and their belief in love.
One such young person was the daughter of the prison guard whose father allowed her to visit Valentine in his cell. They would talk together for hours at a time and a warm friendship grew between them. On the day of his execution Valentine left her a note, thanking her for her friendship and signed it, ‘With love from your Valentine.’ It is believed the tradition of sending love notes and cards dates back to that day: 14th February 269A.D.
So much for the legend – but what has the story got to say to us today, especially since few of us can count ourselves as starry-eyed young lovers anymore? I think there are lessons to be learned from it, especially as Christians, about the importance of love: Christ’s love for us and ours for one another – about how that love can never be vanquished, about the importance of standing up for something we believe in, about declaring to others what matters to us even if it costs us to do so. Our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ pay with their freedom, their jobs and sometimes their lives to stand up for what they believe in. How do we show others that our faith is important to us?
Then there’s something about the giving of a card or a note to show that you care about someone that goes beyond simply romantic notions. Perhaps this Valentine’s Day we could make or do some small but loving thing for someone who won’t be expecting it – a child, a friend, the Big Issue seller, your local shopkeeper or even a stranger – to remind them how special they are to God.
With every blessing,
Sharon