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Reclaiming Valentine's Day

by Pia de Solenni 

Married or single, you survived Valentine’s Day.

Facing Valentine’s Day as a single person without a date often made me cringe. At times, I was proactive and organized some sort of social event to encourage mingling among my single friends, but something always rankled when I faced yet another Valentine’s Day as a single person.

Perhaps the most sordid Valentine’s Day experience was when I noticed a Victoria’s Secret store crammed with men buying lingerie for their Valentines, only most of them didn’t wear wedding bands. It was all about a guarantee to get lucky after shelling out the money for flowers, dinner, gifts, etc.

When looked at in these terms, I’m sympathetic to those who would shun Valentine’s Day as just another commercial opportunity for various businesses and another lost opportunity for lonely hearts.

Despite these various downfalls of Valentine’s Day, I see no reason to cede what should be both a noble and fun holiday for lovers, especially those who are married and who daily perform the work of love.

The murky history of this holiday includes a lot of speculation and few details. It appears that there were several St. Valentines who came from various backgrounds. One was a priest – possibly a bishop – during the reign of Claudius II, who forbade soldiers from marrying. From the emperor’s perspective, a single, undomesticated, risk-taking man made a better soldier than a man who heart was tied to home and hearth. As legend has it, this St. Valentine married these soldiers and their fiancées under threat of execution, which he eventually suffered as a consequence.

Other legends exist as well. But more importantly, the tradition exists of celebrating the pairing and unions of lovers.

Reclaiming the holiday from secularization doesn’t mean spending excessive amounts of money or trying to outdo kitsch. It means, however, celebrating romantic love whether in courtship or in marriage.

For married couples, this celebration bears particular significance. Too often they are sidetracked from their relationship because of the focus on their children. This affects families across the board, regardless of religious practices.

Some Catholics will protest that the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children. Since at least 1968 with the encyclical Humanae Vitae, the Church has clarified that the procreative element of marriage cannot be separated from the unitive. Just as married couples cannot contracept so as to avoid having children, so too are couples bound by their marriage vows to always work on their union, which in turn will benefit not only them but their children.

The unitive element is somewhat primary to the procreative insofar as the union between husband and wife exists before any child comes into existence, and the couple is not somehow unmarried if they are not blessed with children.

Further, it’s important to consider that the sacrament of marriage is not between the parents and the children, but between the spouses themselves. More than simply the physical joining of bodies, the marital union should be an intimate union of persons, the spouses giving themselves to each other entirely.

A few days before Valentine’s Day this year, Pope Benedict took the opportunity to remind us of the importance of the well being of this union for children: “[I]t is precisely the family, founded on marriage between a man and a woman, which is the greatest help that can be given to children. They want to be loved by a mother and a father who love one another…”

In other words, part of the work of parenting is the work of marriage and the work of loving each other. Valentine’s Day can be an opportunity to express gratitude for each other and to find some way to celebrate the union of marriage. Sure, couples should find ways to celebrate their marriage every day, but specific days like an anniversary or a holiday can be opportunities to make the celebration more explicit and intentional.

Perhaps some of the best advice for Valentine’s Day comes from 91-year-old Charlie Wellen, who just celebrated his 71st wedding anniversary with his wife, Barbara: "Just go back to your wedding day and remember how much you loved each other. And start over again. ... But start over with the same spouse!"

A thoughtful gift or a night on the town won’t hurt either. And if you have children, remember that you’re also doing this for them.

Pia de Solenni writes from Seattle, Wash. She can be reached via Facebook and Twitter. (Her website is getting a prolonged makeover and is currently offline.)

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)