February 14
St. Valentine's Day
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St. Valentine's Day should probably be spelled St. Valentines' Day
since there are three different St. Valentines that were originally
honored
liturgically on February 14. They were three martyred men
named Valentinus
who lived in the late third century during the reign
of Emperor Claudius II.
One of them was a priest who was beheaded
because he continued to marry
soldiers after Claudius forbad such
marriages because the emperor thought
that married soldiers were
not as effective as single soldiers. In 496 AD,
Pope Gelasius I set
aside February 14 to honor all of the Sts. Valentinus.
It was the practice of the early church to replace pagan feasts with
religious feasts. St. Valentine's Day was chosen to replace the
Feast of
Lupercalia which was a fertility and mating feast. During
Lupercalia, girls'
names were written on slips of paper that were
placed in a box. The boys would draw the girls' names from the box
and have bedding privileges for a year with the designated girl.
When the Church replaced Lupercalia with St. Valentine's Day, they
kept the name-in-the-box idea, but replaced the girls' names with
saints' names. Boys and girls were supposed to pick a
name from
the box and emulate the life of the saint whose name was drawn.
Games being what they are, the girls' names eventually got back in
the box.
The games, however, became more chivalrous and the
boys gave presents to the
girls whose names were drawn. Some of
the girls returned favors for the
presents, favors ranging from a peck
on the cheek to a roll in the hay.
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St. Valentine Baptizing St,
Lucia
by Jacopo Bassano |
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The food most associated with
Valentine's Day is chocolate which has a history as an aphrodisiac.
The Aztecs drank
chocolate as a homage to Xochiquetzal, their goddess of love. The Mayans used
chocolate as barter in houses of prostitution and it was restricted for the
Mayan ruling class. Montezuma drank a golden goblet of a chocolate drink each
rooming, convinced of its aphrodisiacal properties.
Immediately after Cortez brought chocolate back to Spain, the clergy
denounced it as "provocative of immorality." In 1624, Johan Franciscus
Rauch, a professor in Vienna, condemned chocolate as an inflamer of passions
and urged monks not to drink it and he wanted to ban it in the monasteries.
This presented a problem for the Franciscans whose missions in Mexico made
significant profits by exporting chocolate to Spain The Church
initially tried to ban chocolate because it was thought to inflame lustful
passions, and, as with many things that are forbidden, became an underground
pleasure somewhat akin to the use of marijuana a few hundred years later.
However, the Church eventually relented and Pope Pius V, who did not like
chocolate, declared that drinking chocolate on Friday did not break the
Lenten fast.
Chocolate contains phenylethylamine, a substance which is released naturally in
the human body when one is in love. Other stimulants present in chocolate are
dopamine and serotonin, which alleviate pain and encourage a good mood.
Chocolate contains theobromine, which is a mild, lasting stimulant with a
mood improving effect. Its presence may be one of the causes of chocolate's
mood-elevating effects, especially when one eats large amounts.
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