by Carol Dixon
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Valentine’s day (14 February) is a day when people celebrate love and often send cards as a token of their affection. I thought it might be good to look at the history of the tradition.
It was thought that Valentine’s day began with St. Valentine, who was martyred around 197 AD, but it is more likely to be a Christian interpretation of the Roman festival of Lupercalia, the spring fertility festival celebrated on February 13th-15th. The first recorded mention of Valentine’s day was written in 1382 when Chaucer wrote his poem Parliament of Fowls about 3 male eagles expressing their love for a female bird.
In France in the 15th century it became an annual feast day celebrating romantic love with lavish banquets. A French aristocrat imprisoned in the tower of London after the battle of Agincourt sent the first recorded valentine greeting to his wife (‘I am sick for love for you my gentle Valentine’) which can still be seen in the archives of the British library. Shakespeare also mentions Valentine’s day in Hamlet when Ophelia says ‘Tomorrow is St Valentine’s day and if in the morn be-time, I a maid at your window come to be your Valentine ‘. In 1776 the earliest version of a famous Valentine message was first printed ‘The rose is red, the violet’s blue, the honey’s sweet and so are you’ which was adapted from a quote in Spencer’s Fairie Queen.
The Georgians were the first to send homemade Valentine cards delivered by hand and by the time the Victorians came along the first commercial cards began to appear and were sent by Penny Post. The industry began to blossom – these days it is sometimes over the top with expensive gifts, cordon bleu champagne dinners, and even exotic romantic breaks for two in posh hotels.
Some people past and present sent cards to friends and family (someone is even recorded sending a card to their dog!) but the big question is ‘How do we celebrate love?’ One of the best descriptions of love was written by St. Paul, a man not known for his romantic attachments, who wrote one of the most famous passages on the theme of love in first letter to the Corinthians Ch 13. Here is part of it:
13 1-3 If I speak with the eloquence of human beings and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing.
4 This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
5-6 Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad when truth prevails. 7-8a Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen. All gifts except love will be superseded one day
13 In this life we have three great lasting qualities—faith, hope and love. But the greatest of them is love.
My friend Sheila Hamil wrote a wonderful musical version of it called ‘If I have not love’.
I also love this poem ‘What is love’ by Ruth Burgess (from Iona Books)
Love grows…
love laughs…
love sings…
love cares…
love cries…
love dances…
love does.
Love is beautiful…
love is powerful…
love is exciting…
love is hopeful…
love is warm…
love is a journey…
love is.
Love takes risks…
love makes you vulnerable…
love asks questions…
love tells stories…
love stands up for justice…
love gets you…
love does.
So be warned you lovers,
you learners,
you adventurers,
be warned!
Though you can never be ready
love beckons…
love expands…
love changes lives…
love does.
J.B. Phillips’ translation of 1 Corinthians 13 has very special connotations for Donald and I. It was the reading at our wedding chosen by Revd. Ted Mather who married us at St James’s Church Alnwick on July 4th, 1970. In his wedding address (which we still have on reel to reel tape) Ted told us that although Paul’s great description of love is a blueprint for daily Christian living, it is also an ideal to strive for in our relationships with one another. Wise words indeed. I am not sure that Donald and I have always achieved such perfection every day in our marriage but at least we are still trying to put it into practice 52 and a half years later!
Nowadays this kind of love is seen as countercultural especially in these days of selfies, self-awareness, and the importance of our own needs above everyone else’s. Advocating a life of self-sacrifice seems ridiculous to many people. In the media in particular, a person’s right to retaliate instead of forgiving and moving on is seen as normal and any other way is ridiculed. ‘Look what so and so has done to me, I am damaged for life’ is the mantra. Little wonder Paul calls living in Christian love a higher or better way.
Yet love is not all easy going, easy pleasing. It isn’t just an attitude of being nice to everyone. One of the modern misconceptions about Christianity is that love will tolerate all things and do nothing. Obviously, the people who think that have never read the gospels and seen how radical Jesus was!
St. Paul wasn’t a romantic as far as love was concerned. He was a realist and he realized that love wasn’t just a feeling. Love was a choice. Paul chose to follow the command of Jesus and he commended it to his contemporaries as the way that Jesus advocates, as recorded by John in Ch. 15 of his gospel:
Jesus said 11 “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you. 13 The greatest love you can have for your friends is to give your life for them. 14 And you are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because servants do not know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me; I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures. And so the Father will give you whatever you ask of him in my name. 17 This, then, is what I command you: love one another. [John 15:11-17 GNB]
This Valentine’s Day it is good to send love to our special loved ones but it is also a reminder to live in love with all – to love one another as Jesus loves us, to choose to try and live by Paul’s practical advice and take Jesus at his word.
Some years ago our singing group at church used to sing a hymn called ‘Love is his Word’ which is still well worth listening to today.
So whether you are on your own, with a friend, or in a wonderful partnership like Donald and I you can still enjoy celebrating love on St Valentine’s day. May we live in love, walk in peace and share God’s blessing with all, on St Valentine’s Day and every day.
Donald & Carol
Golden Wedding
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