I Hate Valentines Day
I don't hate it , but I got your attention. I love the concept, but I am not a fan of what it has become. To me it has become a societal nightmare of trite hyper sensitive expectations that are completely unrealistic and can be massively emotionally damning to persons ofromantic delusions and low self confidence.
Romance is not a Hollywood Movie , it not a fantasy - it is real, it is raw, dirty, uncomfortable and completely unpredictable and unforgiving. It is next to a death of a love one, romantic/love relationships can be the most traumatic emotionally charged experiences we as humans can undergo. Hence the phrase “ Madly in Love” 7 Signs of Desperate Dater
What is true romance ? What is Love ?
The definition of Romance is : It is a display or expression of love or strong affection. It is a fanciful; impractical, and unrealistic neurological response which is created by an internal chemical reaction , which is characterized by a preoccupation with love or by the idealizing of love or one's beloved.
LOVE: 3 main forms Of Love :
Agape – Unconditional Love definition -Eros – Romantic or Sexual Love definition - Philia – Friendship Love
While the history of Valentine's Day is sometimes debated, it clearly links back to a Catholic saint named St. Valentine.
The problem is there are actually three St. Valentine's -- one a priest, one a bishop, and little is known about the third. All were martyrs.
In 469 A.D., Pope Gelasius declared Feb. 14 a day to honor St. Valentine, one of these three men.
One legend says that a Roman emperor banned soldiers from marrying in the third century, but St. Valentine took issue with this. He became an advocate for soldiers and was executed as a result of his outspokenness.
Another legend says St. Valentine was executed for his beliefs in Christianity and just before he died, he left a farewell note for a loved one and signed it "From Your Valentine."
A conventional and widely accepted belief about the holiday itself is that Valentine's Day grew out of a Middle Ages tradition of celebrating Feb. 14 as the day "the birds began to pair."
History.com notes that February has long been associated with being a month of love, and Feb. 15 was celebrated in ancient times as a fertility festival.
Sited by Huffington Post
THe History of Valentines : Sited from Wikipedia.
Saint Valentine's Day (commonly shortened to Valentine's Day)[1][2][3] is an annual holiday held on February 14 celebrating love and affection betweenintimate companions.[1][3] The holiday is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentine and was established by Pope Gelasius I in AD 496. It is traditionally a day on which lovers express their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines"). The holiday first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.
Modern Valentine's Day symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards.[4]
Saint Valentine
Numerous early Christian martyrs were named Valentine.[7] The Valentines honored on February 14 are Valentine of Rome (Valentinus presb. m. Romae) and Valentine of Terni (Valentinus ep. Interamnensis m. Romae).[8] Valentine of Rome[9] was a priest in Rome who was martyred about AD 269 and was buried on the Via Flaminia. His relics are at the Church of Saint Praxed in Rome,[10]and at Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland.
Valentine of Terni[11] became bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) about AD 197 and is said to have been martyred during the persecution under Emperor Aurelian. He is also buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different location than Valentine of Rome. His relics are at the Basilica of Saint Valentine in Terni (Basilica di San Valentino).[12]
The Catholic Encyclopedia also speaks of a third saint named Valentine who was mentioned in early martyrologies under date of February 14. He was martyred in Africa with a number of companions, but nothing more is known about him.[13]
No romantic elements are present in the original early medieval biographies of either of these martyrs. By the time a Saint Valentine became linked to romance in the fourteenth century, distinctions between Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni were utterly lost.[14]
In the 1969 revision of the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints, the feastday of Saint Valentine on February 14 was removed from the General Roman Calendar and relegated to particular (local or even national) calendars for the following reason: "Though the memorial of Saint Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars, since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14."[15] The feast day is still celebrated in Balzan (Malta) where relics of the saint are claimed to be found, and also throughout the world by Traditionalist Catholics who follow the older, pre-Vatican II calendar.
The Early Medieval acta of either Saint Valentine were expounded briefly in Legenda Aurea.[16] According to that version, St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman EmperorClaudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer.
Legenda Aurea still providing no connections whatsoever with sentimental love, appropriate lore has been embroidered in modern times to portray Valentine as a priest who refused an unattested law attributed to Roman Emperor Claudius II, allegedly ordering that young men remain single. The Emperor supposedly did this to grow his army, believing that married men did not make for good soldiers. The priest Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail. In an embellishment to The Golden Legend provided by American Greetings, Inc. to History.com and widely repeated, on the evening before Valentine was to be executed, he wrote the first "valentine" himself, addressed to a young girl variously identified as his beloved,[17] as the jailer's daughter whom he had befriended and healed,[18] or both. It was a note that read "From your Valentine."[17]
Attested traditions
Lupercalia
Though popular modern sources link unspecified Greco-Roman February holidays alleged to be devoted to fertility and love to St Valentine's Day, Professor Jack Oruch of the University of Kansasargued[19] that prior to Chaucer, no links between the Saints named Valentinus and romantic love existed. Earlier links as described above were focused on sacrifice rather than romantic love. In theancient Athenian calendar the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion, dedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera.
In Ancient Rome, Lupercalia, observed February 13 through 15, was an archaic rite connected to fertility. Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome. The more general Festival of Juno Februa, meaning "Juno the purifier "or "the chaste Juno," was celebrated on February 13-14. Pope Gelasius I (492-496) abolished Lupercalia.
It is a common opinion that the Christian church may have decided to celebrate Valentine's feast day in the middle of February in an effort to Christianize celebrations of the pagan Lupercalia, and that a commemorative feast was established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, of those "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God," among whom was Valentine, was set for the useful day. Alternatively, William M. Green argues that the Catholic Church could not abolish the deeply rooted Lupercalia festival, so the church set aside a day to honor the Virgin Mary.[20]
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