Kalema Lawrence
14th February is here again, it is valentines. As you all celebrating this day of love, we would like to take you through a brief origin of Valentines’ day.
It originated from Rome, Italy around the 5th century but had to wait 900 years for it to receive global acceptance and recognition as the date to celebrate love.
According to history, its roots come from the Lupercalia Festival, which was held in Rome to honor fertility. Priests from an order called Luperci sacrificed a goat and a dog; skinned them and soaked their hides in blood, and then used them to gently “whip” young women, a tradition aimed at making them “more fertile”.
After that, the women’s names were put in a jar, and each eligible young man picked a name. Based on the name he would have picked, the man and the woman would, for the next one year, be a couple. The new relationship could end in marriage, says the Catholic Education Resource Centre.
Pope Gelasius I (one) would, in the 5th century, integrate the Lupercalia Festival with St. Valentine’s Day. Saint Valentine was a third-century Roman saint, commemorated in Western Christianity on February 14. He suffered martyrdom during the persecution of Christians by the emperor Claudius II Gothicus.
St. Valentine was buried on the Via Flaminia, and Pope Julius I reportedly built a basilica over his grave.
Although the Roman Catholic Church continues to recognize St. Valentine as a saint of the church, he was removed from the General Roman Calendar in 1969 because of the lack of reliable information about him. History indicates St. Valentine’s showed heroic love for the Lord and the church, thus the date and month of love – February 14 – was named after him.
