Did You Ever Wonder? ... about St. Valentine?

February 14th is not only Ash Wednesday, but it is also Valentine's Day.

Although the day is now marked as a day to celebrate love in your life and has a romantic connotation, St. Valentine's Day was originally a day of religious commemoration of a person.

Valentine of Terini was a man who lived in the third century.  What we reliably know about him is that he was killed for his faith- and that's about it.  Interestingly enough, there are 11 other saints with the name Valentine (or Valentines, in its original form), and one of them might or might not be the same guy as this one.

Because so little is known of St. Valentine, the Roman Catholic Church took him off their official list of feasts in 1969.  Local congregation can choose to have a feast day, but most do not.

We have all kinds of stories in the history of the church that come from tradition.  Here is one about St. Valentine:

St. Valentine was apparently under house arrest because he believed in Jesus.  A Roman judge was debating with him the divinity of Jesus, and after some discussion, the judge had an idea.  He brought his blind daughter to Valentine, and said that if he restored her sight, he would do whatever Valentine wanted.

The daughter's sight was immediately restored, and because of this, Valentine had all the Christian prisoners freed, and the judge, his daughter, and their entire family were all baptized.