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February is an awesome time of year for love, Pagan celebrations, and of course chocolate hearts. The month has for eras been associated with romance and love, and that goes back to the early days of ancient Rome.
Lupercalia love lottery
Lupercalia was a celebration that honored the birth of twin founders of the city Rome. As the celebration evolved, it turned into a festival that honors the coming of the spring time, and fertility. One Valentine’s game that was played was that the single bachelors pull young ladies name out of an earn and they pair would be one another’s date for the evening. Later on, the match-making game was declared as immoral. Nevertheless, ancient matchmaking is still alive and well today!
The pope Gelasius changed the lottery love game into a game of saints where young men pulled the name of a saint from the urn and then learned about that saint in detail. The idea was to encourage the young noblemen to become more spiritual.
St Valentine
The legend of St Valentine is that a young priest disobeyed the Emporer by marrying young men who were in love with their women. The Emporer didn’t want young men to get married as they more desired to be single and in miliary service for the pope with no ties. So, he through the young priest Valentine into prison. While in prison, Valentine met and fell in love with the jailer’s daughter. He wrote her a love letter signed, From Your Valentine.
Ever since then St. Valentine was revered as a tragic and romantic hero in love. No one knows if the Valentine tale is true or mere fiction. Nevertheless Valentine’s is known as the day to celebrate romance and love.
