With Love From Chapel - Lent Term - Week 6

Happy Valentine’s Day!

There is nothing quite like the shout of ‘Happy Valentine’s Day, Miss!’ to begin the last day of the half-term. I am not a great follower of Valentine’s traditions, but this still made me smile. So do the cards, flowers and Instagram posts that some of our students flood each other with.

But why all the fuss? Who was St Valentine? Why was he a Saint? And was he actually also a ‘lover’? 

Well, the story goes that Valentine, the 3rd century Bishop of Terni, was a great supporter of lovers - marrying Roman soldiers in secret despite a royal decree from Emperor Aurelius that banned them from marriage (Aurelius needed them to fight his wars instead). Not surprisingly, Aurelius threw Valentine into prison for this disobedience. There, however, Valentine cured the jailer’s blind daughter from her blindness and the two fell madly in love with each other. It was ‘love at first sight’ - at least for her. 

Unfortunately, the story does not have a happy ending and instead, Bishop Valentine was executed on 14th February the following year. The night before, however, he wrote the young lady a passionate letter and signed it with ‘Your Valentine’. The next morning he was executed for his love of love. 

Quite the story for a Christian saint (although he would have earned that title more for being a miracle healer and martyr than as a ‘lover’) and one worth remembering I think.

So when you write that card, pick up those flowers or raise a glass tonight with your ‘Valentine’, spare a thought for Saint Valentine, the passionate Bishop who had to die for love on 14th February 273AD. 

With Love From The Chapel