These Three Remain: Faith, Hope and Love. But the Greatest of These is Love.

  Valentine’s Day has come to be known as the day that everyone celebrates love, romance, or the prospect of either. Hearts, candy, flowers, jewelry, and plenty of kissy faced attempts at poetry have come to be the norm in our current society.

 However, if you have an inquiring mind, like I do, and you head out in search of the origins of this ridiculous day then you just might find that the festival of candy, flowers, and cupids have dark and even bloody origins.

 Early Roman celebrations of this day were violent. Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. 

                                Lupercalia was celebrated on or about February 15th

 According to Roman legend, the ancient King Amulius ordered Romulus and Remus—his twin nephews and founders of Rome—to be thrown into the Tiber River to drown in retribution for their mother’s broken vow of celibacy.

 A servant took pity on them, however, and placed them inside a basket on the river instead. The river-god carried the basket and the brothers downriver to a wild fig tree where it became caught in the branches. The brothers were then rescued and cared for by a she-wolf in a den at the base of Palatine Hill where Rome was founded.

 The twins were later adopted by a shepherd and his wife and learned their father’s trade. After killing the uncle who’d ordered their death, they found the cave den of the she-wolf who’d nurtured them and named it Lupercal.

 It’s thought Lupercalia took place to honor the she-wolf and please the Roman fertility god Lupercus.

 Lupercalia rituals took place in a few places: Lupercal cave, on Palatine Hill and within the Roman open-air, public meeting place called the Comitium. 

 The festival began at Lupercal cave with the sacrifice of one or more male goats—a representation of sexuality—and a dog.

 The sacrifices were performed by Luperci, a group of Roman priests. Afterwards, the foreheads of two naked Luperci were smeared with the animals’ blood using the bloody, sacrificial knife. The blood was then removed with a piece of milk-soaked wool as the Luperci laughed.

 In Ancient Rome, feasting began after the ritual sacrifice. When the feast of Lupercal was over, the Luperci cut strips, also called thongs or februa, of goat hide from the newly sacrificed goats.

 They then ran naked—or nearly naked—around Palantine, whipping any woman within striking distance with the thongs.

 During Lupercalia, the men randomly chose a woman’s name from a jar to be coupled with them for the duration of the festival. Often, the couple stayed together until the following year’s festival. Many fell in love and married.

 “Be my Valentine?”

 

                                                              Claudius The Cruel

Another legend has it that the emperor Claudius Aurelius had imprisoned a priest named Valentine in 272 AD for continuing to marry Christian soldiers, despite royal decree (Aurelius needed them to fight his wars). 

 In prison, the bishop cured his jailer’s daughter of blindness and the pair fell head over heels in love (quite literally ‘love at first sight’.) Ultimately, their desires were frustrated as the bishop was executed by being beaten with clubs and had his head cut off on February 14 the following year!

 On the eve of his death, the condemned man sent a passionate letter to his beloved, signed simply ‘your Valentine’.

 If you are celebrating this day with the expectation that this day is all about love, you may just want to dial back the expectations a bit! 

As for me? I'll stick with the Christian views on LOVE

                                                                  1 Corinthians 13

  If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 

 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 

 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 

 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 

 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.