VALENTINE'S: What about it?

We are not casting judgment on those who celebrate Valentine's Day....we will follow Paul's words.. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink,
 or in respect of an holyday,....
Colossians 2:16

YOU DECIDE FOR YOURSELF.....

The New Oxford American Dictionary says “ORIGIN: Old English hāligdæg [holy day.]”
O.E. haligdæg, from halig "holy" + dæg "day;" in 14c. meaning both "religious festival" and "day of recreation", but pronunciation and sense diverged
Holiday is a compound stemming from the words holy and day. The word 'holiday' first surfaced in the 1500's replacing the earlier word 'haliday' which was recorded before 1200 in the Old English book Ancrene Riwle. Earlier , about 950, the word was 'haligdaeg' and appeared in the Old English Lindisfarne Gospels. It was a compound of halig (holy) plus daeg (day) English Language & Usage

"In 313 A.D., Roman Emperor Constantine the Great legalized Christianity and ended Rome's persecution of Christians. In 380 A.D., Christianity becomes the OFFICIAL state religion of the

Roman Empire. These actions not only enabled the teachings of Christianity to spread unhindered within the empire, it encouraged non-Christians to convert to the once-persecuted religion.

The pagans, however, who adopted Christianity as their religion did not entirely abandon the traditions and practices they held before their "conversion." One of these traditions brought into the church was the fertility celebration known as the Lupercalia, which eventually became the Valentine's holiday.

"Yet the vestiges of superstition were not absolutely obliterated, and the festival of the Lupercalia, whose origin had preceded the foundation of Rome, was still celebrated under the reign of Anthemius."

"After the conversion of the Imperial city (Rome), the Christians still continued, in the month of February, the annual celebration of the Lupercalia . . . " (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbons, Chapter 36, Part 3)
Twenty-four years after the death of Emperor Anthemius, a "Christianized" form of the festival of Lupercalia was officially adopted by the church as a time to honor Saint Valentine.

"Early Christians were happier with the idea of a holiday (Valentine's) honoring the saint of romantic causes than with one recognizing a pagan festival. In 496 A.D., Pope Gelasius named February 14 in honor of St. Valentine as the patron saint of lovers." (How Valentine's Day Works, Apr. 1, 2000, retrieved Jan. 11, 2011)

February 14th as the day to honor this "saint" (the Catholic Church currently recognizes at least three different martyred saints named Valentine or Valentinus) stayed on the church's Calendar of Saints until 1969 A.D. Pope Paul VI removed it from the calendar.

What was the festival of Lupercalia?

The Lupercalia festival was partly in honor of Lupa, the she-wolf who (according to legend) nursed the infant orphans Romulus and Remus. Roman legend states that Romulus and Remus founded the city of Rome in 753 B.C. The pagan festival was also in honor of the Roman god Lupercus who was the god of shepherds.
Lupercus was Rome's 

PAN

equivalent to the Greek god Pan.
The link between the Lupercalia, fertility, and romance in general is evident in the festivities that occurred during the celebrations (Valentine's Day, History Channel web site, retrieved Jan. 10, 2011).
The Greek historian Plutarch (c. 46 to 120 A.D.) also describes the Lupercalia and its relationship to fertility. The second-century Christian apologist Justin Martyr further links the worship of pagan gods to the Lupercalia when he writes of an image of "the Lycaean god, whom the Greeks call Pan and the Romans Lupercus," who is nude save for a girdle of goatskin, which stood in the Lupercal, the cave where Romulus and Remus were suckled by a she-wolf.

Valentine's Symbols

Red Roses Red roses were the favorite flower of Venus, the Roman goddess of love.

Cupid
In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection, and erotic love. Cupid today appears shooting his bow to inspire romantic love.

The Heart
It is unclear the origin of the familiar heart shape used for Valentine's celebration. One possibility involves the now-extinct North African plant silphium. The city-state of Cyrene had a lucrative trade in the plant, which looks just like the heart shape used in modern times."

Sources: "Where did the ubiquitous Valentine's symbol come from?"

 

 

Lupercalia ancient Roman festival ancient Roman festival
 that was conducted annually on February 15
under the superintendence of a corporation of priests called Luperci.
Each Lupercalia began with the sacrifice by the Luperci of goats and a dog,
after which two of the Luperci were led to the altar,
 their foreheads were touched with a bloody knife,
and the blood was wiped off with wool dipped in milk;
 the ritual required that the two young men laugh.
The sacrificial feast followed, after which
the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the sacrificial animals
and ran in two bands around the Palatine hill,
striking with the thongs at any woman who came near them.
 A blow from the thong was supposed to render a woman fertile.
 In 494 AD the Christian church under Pope Gelasius I
appropriated the form of the rite as
the Feast of the Purification.
Encyclopedia Britannica
**FEAST OF PURIFICATION**
"The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary---
The Feast of the Presentation is one of the oldest feasts of the Catholic Church,
celebrated since the 4th century AD in Jerusalem.
The Lupercalia have frequently been linked to the presentation of Jesus at the temple,
particularly by Cardinal Cesare Baronio in the 16th century
 especially because of the theme of purification that the two festivals share.
In fact, Pope Gelasius I had much earlier written a letter
 to a senator Andromachus, who wanted to reestablish the Lupercalia
 for the purpose of purification, and the so-called Gelasian Sacramentary
 mentions the celebration of the Presentation of Jesus,
lending support to the conclusion
that Gelasius substituted the pagan festival with a Christian one.
Imbolc
Among the Celts, the pagan celebration of Imbolc occurred on the first of February.
This was in honor of the goddess Brigid and was associated

with purification and fertility at the end of winter.

Peasants would carry torches and cross the fields in procession,
praying to the goddess to purify the ground before planting.
In churches, the torches were replace by blessed candles
whose glow was supposed to take away evil and symbolize
 that Christ is the light of the world.
They would then take the candles to their homes
 to bring protection to their homes.
 In 1372 this celebration would also be associated
with the purification of Mary at the Temple.
Bears
From antiquity to the Middle Ages, bears were an object of cult.
Germans and Scandinavians and, to a lesser extent,

 the Celts celebrated the end of hibernation of the bears
 at the end of January and beginning of February.
However January 24
was for most of Europe the date of the celebration.
This was around the time when the bears would leave their dens
and see if the weather was mild.
This festival was characterized by bear costumes or disguises,
 and mock rapes and abductions of young girls.
For a long time, the Catholic Church sought to eradicate these pagan practices.
 To do this, it instituted the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple
 which is celebrated on February 2,
which corresponds to the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary.
However, the celebrations of the bear and the return of light continued,
with bonfires and other torchlight processions.
 Pope Gelasius I in the fifth century therefore instituted the feast of candles.
From the twelfth to the eighteenth century,
Candlemas was called "chandelours" in many areas
where the memory of the cult of the bear was still very present.
United States and Canada
The celebration of Candlemas has largely
 been replaced in the media by groundhog day."
Wikipedia