ST. VALENTINE’S DAY IS COMING!
Abjloving is all about progressive change, but it seems we have been struck by cupid's arrow. To mark valentine this year, we would bring you articles that focus on the valentine day celebration, from the 10th-14th of this month, stay on the page and you might win something. What better way to start off than to look at how that day we all love to celebrate began? So here it goes.
Saint Valentine's Day, also known as Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is observed on February 14 each year. It is celebrated in many countries around the world, although it remains a working day in most of them. St. Valentine's Day began as a liturgical celebration of one or more early Christian saints named Valentinus.
It is generally believed that St. Valentine was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians who were persecuted under the Roman Empire. According to the story, while he was imprisoned he healed the daughter of his jailer Asterius. People have further juiced up the story adding that before he was executed he wrote her a letter and signed “Your valentine” as a farewell.
Did you know that not everyone celebrates Valentine’s day on February 14th? The Eastern Orthodox church celebrates St. Valentine’s day on July 6 to honour St. Valentine and July 30 in honour of Hieromartyr Valentine, the Bisop of Interama (modern Terni), while in Brazil St. Valentine’s day is recognized on June 12.
St. Valentine’s day was first associated with romantic love in the time of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtship flourished. In 18th-century England, it evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines"). Valentine's Day symbols that are used today include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-produced greeting cards. Today approximately 190 million valentines or valentine cards as we know it are sent out on Valentine’s day whether in hard or soft copy forms.
Interestingly, the Anglican Church has a service for St. Valentine's Day (the Feast of St. Valentine), which includes the optional rite of the renewal of marriage vows.
Is not surprising how Val’s day as we fondly call it started from the Church, and how these days the way most people go about it gives nothing so holy to say about Val’s day? I recently saw a cake designed in form of a female bum wearing panties… it was an advert for Valentine cakes and all I could say was “its all about sex, dating and unrealistic expectations these days..”.
Is it possible to spend this year’s Val’s day differently?
How about doing something real special for your family? Like sending messages to each member of your family as to how you truly appreciate them, that would light up their day! Or how about showing love to your colleagues or to your roommates? Like being extra nice that day? How about chatting up your security man at the gate, offer him something as little as a bottle of cold coke and wish him a happy valentine with a wide smile. You could be extra nice and pass around some cup cakes, sweets or anything you want to share.
All am saying is this – it is already obvious that you love that special one and it has been very typical over time that we would spend time and money to go get nice things for them or do something extra ordinary for them. However, we focus too much on them to notice that there are a lot of lonely people around us, we see them everyday and everywhere, people who don’t need so much but just a kind word, or a smile, or a meal or a prayer….little simple things.
Lets make Val’s day very special this year 2014, lets light up the world with kindness.
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