What is Valentine’s Day?

So what is Valentine’s Day? It’s also known as Saint Valentine's Day for those who always celebrates on February 14 every year in the Gregorian calendar. And of course, the month of February is the season of love. Believe it or not, many couples do have some time out to spend special moments with one another.

However, just be prepared to fight for tables in some impressive restaurants and to look your very best as well. Also, not to mention the overpriced roses or whatever flowers that your loved one would like to have for the occasion, the greeting cards and chocolates goes with it too. Plus, if you have been dating her for quite some time already, she maybe expecting you for a greater level of commitment. Then, perhaps it’s the right time to consider a marriage proposal. Don’t forget the gift that you want to give as a symbol of your undying feelings full of love for your special someone or your other half in life.

Across the United States and in other places around the world, candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. Who is the mysterious saint and where did these traditions come from? Far from what we know, St. Valentine's Day had very humble beginnings and in the form of a liturgical celebration of early Christian saints named Valentinus. Only little information known about St. Valentine aside than being a priest in Rome. St. Valentine was martyred in approximately AD 269, and was buried on the Via Flaminia in Italy. And from then on, it was basically fables and folk stories and the most popular of them was claiming he was a priest near Rome in the year 270 AD. That was the time when the church of Jesus had to suffer an excessive level of persecution.

Valentine’s ministry at that time assist the Christians in escaping such levels of persecution and as well as being a conduit to deliver the sacraments that are very important and marriage is one of them. It appeared that the Roman Emperor Claudius II back then bring to an end the marriages of soldiers so that his army can grow in numbers and he believed that married men did not have the courage to perform well on the battlefield.

Upon realizing the injustice of the said law, Valentine disobeyed Emperor Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secrecy. And when the Emperor found out Valentine’s disobedience, the he ordered that Valentine should be put to death. Even now, others insist that it was Saint Valentine of Terni who was a bishop and the true namesake of the holiday was beheaded by Claudius II outside Rome.

However, the modern version of Valentine's Day seems to deal with romantic love in most cases, do you agree? Present-day Valentine's Day customs have advanced from its early days in modern England where it even spread further in the 19th century. And some of these practices that exist until now includes buying flowers and gifts for your loved one with matching chocolates and sending cards to one another. As a matter fact, paper Valentine cards ended up being tremendously popular in England sometime in the early 19th century that there’s even a factory assembly line.

Valentine greetings were popular as far back in the Middle Ages while written Valentine’s didn’t begin to emerge until after 1400. As of the oldest known valentine greeting still in existence today was a poem written by Charles, Duke of Orleans in 1415, to his wife while he was detained in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. And this written greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England. Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois. Catherine of Valois or Catherine of France was the queen consort of England from 1420 until 1422. A daughter of Charles VI of France and Isabella of Bavaria, she was married to Henry V of England, and gave birth to his heir Henry VI of England.





And so whatever our religion is around the world, we all celebrate Valentine’s Day by giving flowers with chocolates, cards and mostly gifts to someone very special to show how much we love and care for them.



From Parrots Kun Eikaiwa’s management, staffs and Teachers who dearly love our students… Happy Valentine’s Day and may this day be filled with love and caring to one another.


Parrots' SNS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
YOUTUBE