Valentine’s Day: what does it mean and why is Valentine’s Day celebrated on February 14?

We all know that the February 14th It’s Valentine’s Day, Valentine’s Day. And although it is celebrated all over the world in honor of this saint, little is known about him and why he is linked to the couple.

Saint Valentine He is a saint and martyr of the Catholic Church. The Catholic martyrology – a sort of catalog of saints and martyrs – includes two figures with that name.

“It could be the same saint who was carried from his city to Rome for martyrdom. This is suspected because, besides having the same name, both were beheaded on the Via Flaminia and have their own party in February 14th”, the Catholic press agency points out Press of the ICA.

Valentine, the Roman priest who performed miracles

According to various Catholic documents, a Roman priest known as Valentino lived during the reign of the emperor Claudius Gotico (268-270).

As Valentine was famous for his holiness, the emperor summoned him and tried unsuccessfully to convert him to his polytheistic religion. He even entrusted the task to Asterius, one of his trusted men.

But Asterius Not only did he fail to make Valentin renounce his faith, but so did he converted to Christianity himselfafter seeing how his daughter, who was blind from an early age, He miraculously recovered his sight through the intercession of the priest.

aware of history, Claudius II ordered Valentino to be beheaded on February 14 on the Roman Via Flaminianear the place where he was later buried.

The Bishop of Terni who healed the sick

THE another version about Valentine’s Day is placed in the fourth century and presents it as Bishop of the Italian city of Terni.

According to the story presented VaticanNewsin that time, Crato, a very rich professor of Greek and Latin, offered half of his fortune to the bishop because he heal your child of a physical deformity.

Refusing the money, the bishop prayed for the boy, who was thus healed, and managed to heal the whole family Crato converts to Christianity. Again, the miracle would have triggered the martyrdom of Valentine, which it was performed on the Via Flaminia.

Why is he the patron saint of lovers?

Second VaticanNewsthe tradition of Saint Valentine AS patron saint of lovers originates from an ancient English text whose author, named Geoffrey Chaucer, claims that in mid-February the birds begin to reproduceand in the northern hemisphere the date coincides with the beginning of spring.

Other versions collect other stories preserved by oral tradition. One of them is that heEmperor Claudius II had banned marriages so that men would be available for warfare.

Challenging this decree, it is said that Valentine was a priest who secretly married couples.

In the year 496 Pope Gelasius established that each February 14th will be held at Valentine’s Day on the anniversary of his martyrdom. His relics are found in various churches around the world.