Perpetual Ruminations

I Never Knew

Ah, sweet wonderful Wednesday. Not that there is anything special about Wednesday, except I don't have to work today; I also have tomorrow off. That makes it my weekend and that's pretty sweet. Of course, That's this week, only because I worked yesterday for someone who really wanted to spend Valentine's Day with his lady-friend. My Valentine had to work yesterday afternoon and I had originally thought of making her a nice, romantic dinner. But since I filled in for the other person, we will celebrate our Valentine's Day today.

Speaking of Valentines Day, have you ever wondered how February 14 came to be a day for lovers? I have wondered and did a bit of looking into St. Valentine. It was interesting to learn that it's actually a Catholic feast day for Mr. Valentine. But, in all my reading I never found anything to indicate why it turned into a Saint feast day into a romance day.

Today, while looking at an app that gives the word of the day and some other interesting things for this date, like an article of the day, a quote of the day, this day in history, today's birthday, and today's holiday, I found the connection.

I had already discovered that many religious days, Holy-days, were set to coincide with Pagan celebrations. The idea was to give them something Christian to celebrate instead of something Pagan. In reading today's holiday, I again see this practice resulting in our modern day celebration of St. Valentine. Of course, it's only my thoughts and opinion, but it makes sense to me. Also, in our modern day world, commercialism has added a great many changes to everything.

But back to today's holiday; ancient Rome celebrated Lupercalia on this date. It included a sacrifice of dogs and goats, and many worshipers. Luperci, priests of the deity Lupercal,  dressed in goat skins and smeared with the blood of the sacrificed animals would run around striking women with thongs of goat skin called februa, which eventually gave this month it's name. This was thought to assure them of fertility and easy delivery, then the festival, as with most festivals of the Phallic Cult, turned into an all out orgy

Of course, when the church became established in Rome, it couldn't have people going around sacrificing goats and dogs, whipping women with goat skin thongs and then having an orgy, so they needed something to replace it with, and that was the feast of St. Valentine. I suppose over time, and with the fall of Rome, some parts of the old Pagan celebration merged with the newer feast of St. Valentine and it resulted in a day of celebration and romance that had nothing really to do with Mr. Valentine at all. Well except maybe the day he was martyred or something.