St. Valentine

Who they were

The historical Valentine is a priest, or possibly a bishop, since early records may merge two men, martyred on the Flaminian Way around 269 and buried there. His basilica was among Rome's early pilgrimage stops. That is most of what is known, and this page says so. The romance arrived eleven centuries later, when Chaucer and the poets attached his mid-February feast to the pairing of birds and then of people, and the association never let go. Later tradition backfilled stories worth telling as tradition: that he married Christian couples when marriage put them in legal danger, and that he healed his jailer's blind daughter and left her a note signed your Valentine. The Church's calendar reform of 1969 moved his universal feast off the books precisely because the history is thin, and his Martyrology entry and the world's affection both remain.

Why people turn to St. Valentine

Engaged couples, and couples whose love is currently expensive: disapproval, distance, illness. The kernel under the greeting cards is a man who died for binding people to each other before God.

How to ask their intercession

Couples: one rosary prayed together on or near the 14th, asking his prayers for the costly kind of faithfulness.