Today is St. Valentine’s day. Note it is spelled Valentine and not Valentimes as so often pronounced. How I remember as a child writing out the little valentines that I would bring to school on this day and each of us had a lunch bag on the front of our desk and we would place them in the bag for each kid. Some would get more, and some would get less. Then we would have a party. We liked parties in school. I went to a very small elementary school and we were all from the same neighborhood so we all knew each other. Those were the days, but I digress.In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Saint Valentine the Presbyter, is celebrated on 6 July, and Hieromartyr Saint Valentine (Bishop of Interamna, Terni in Italy) is celebrated on 30 July.
The Catholic Encyclopedia has an article on the same two Saints that have the name Valentine and also a little history of how this saints feast day becasue used by lovers to celebrate their love.
The popular customs associated with Saint Valentine’s Day undoubtedly had their origin in a conventional belief generally received in England and France during the Middle Ages, that on 14 February, i.e. half way through the second month of the year, the birds began to pair.
The article continues:
For this reason the day was looked upon as specially consecrated to lovers and as a proper occasion for writing love letters and sending lovers’ tokens. Both the French and English literatures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries contain allusions to the practice.
