Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Who was Valentine?

My good friend Josh Duffy has an amazing post on his blog -here- about the real hero of Valentines day:
St Valentine of Rome lived some 200 yrs after Christ. In that time the Roman Emperor Claudius II proclaimed a law that young men should not be married because single men made for better soldiers than married men. Valentine continued performing marriage ceremonies and was found out and was eventually brought before Emperor Claudius. Claudius had great respect for this man of God and tried to get Valentine to renounce Christ so that he could spare his life. Valentine refused and in turn, tried to convert Claudius from paganism to Christianity. Claudius refused and subsequently had Valentine imprisoned.

In prison Valentine befriended his jailor's daughter, who was blind. He prayed for her and she was miraculously cured which resulted in the jailor's conversion to Christ. The night before Valentine died he wrote a note to her and signed it "from your Valentine". On February 14, 269 AD, Valentine of Rome was beaten with clubs and beheaded for his faith.

This story is much different than the one we think of on Feb 14. Let's get back to the root of some of these holidays we ignorantly celebrate.
Amen Josh. Happy Valentines Day everyone!

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