Heart of the Matter

HAVE A HEART: I've never been a big (or even small) Valentine's Day fan, really. Don't get me wrong, I have loved helping my kids make cute cards for their friends, and a cool card collection box (like this one Annabelle made last year). And I made the kids heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast. However, I really kind of deplore the 'holiday' in general, specifically. to me, it seems like it's all about brow-beating people into thinking they have to be over-the-top demonstrating their affection for a loved one(s). 

I asked the kids this morning what Valentine's Day means. Annabelle said, "It's Singles' Awareness Day."  

That made me laugh out loud. (Annabelle added that she is not the originator of that meme.)

CJ postulated, "It's about a murdered Catholic guy who nobody remembers."

"St. Valentine?" I asked.

So, off to the Internet we went to get to the root of this Valentine's Day business. Right off the bat, we found a short, informative video on the History Channel's website. It didn't allow me to embed it for the blog, but you can see it here: https://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day/history-of-valentines-day-2

The video is full of information. It mentioned that while many think that the holiday was named after a Catholic priest, there were really a couple of Valentines back in the day, and not much is know about either. It is known that in 496 Pope Gelasious I, the third and last Bishop of Rome of berber origin, declared February 14 as Valentine's Day. Gelasious apparently called Valentine 'soft hearted' for secretly performing weddings for Roman soldiers (it was thought single men made better warriors). However, because so little is known about St. Valentine's life and the circumstances of his martyrdom, in 1969, the Roman Catholic Church removed the name of St. Valentine from the liturgical calendar. Yet the commercial holiday churns on!

As it turns out, the mid-February celebration's true origin is not Catholicism. Rather, it's yet another pagan festival or celebration that was co-opted by Christianity along the way.

Multiple sources cite the origin of the mid-February celebration as Lupercalia, which, you might deduce, was actually a celebration of wolves (lupus). For some 1200 years, Romans celebrated Lupercalia, and it sounds like it was quite a party if you believe the research of Historia Civilis. It apparently involved two factions of priests meeting in a cave not far from Rome, doing some Romulus and Remus-themed ceremony that involved sacrificing three goats and a dog. There were human stand ins for the R&R twins. The Fabii and Quintilii priest apparently drank copious amounts of wine, got naked and then went running around the streets of town lashing people with whips they'd fashioned out of the sacrificed goat hides. The whipping was all in good fun, it seems. Apparently if you were whipped, it meant good luck (you'd find a partner, have an easier childbirth, that kind of thing). Go figure.

So there you have it. 

Wonder if Hallmark has any Lupercalia cards. ...  

And here's that Historia Civilis video, in case you want a slightly longer version of the Lupercalia story. https://youtu.be/a_ZGSpQaw3A