Interview with a Saint
Valentine Speaks Out — Exclusive!
Disclaimer: Christis does not condone or support necromancy in any of its forms. Such practices should only be attempted by experienced journalists and desperate music publishers.
St Valentine is a somewhat enigmatic figure. Despite the number of sites devoted to him on the internet, the factual information available about him is scanty at best. Most sites, and for that matter books, tend towards the nauseatingly sentimental, while the various Lives of the Saints I consulted offered very little about one of the few saints to whose holiday is widely celebrated on both sides of the pond.
Most agree that Valentine was a third century priest in Rome who aided the Christians martyrs at the time of the persecutions of Claudius the Cruel, an emperor much in need of a better spin doctor. Claudius, needing soldiers for his increasingly bloody and unpopular wars, banned marriages and engagements, as he believed that prospective soldiers were not coming as they did not wish to leave their families. Valentine married couples in secret, before being caught, imprisoned, beaten and beheaded somewhere around 269 and 270 AD. That’s about it. And that might not be true. Other stories have him as a priest who gave aid to imprisoned martyrs. Scarcely sufficient material on which to build a legend.
Well, such paucity of information was hardly going to fill an article, so I went right to the source. The means by which I acquired this are highly secret, and I intend them to remain so, but I now present the world’s only interview this century with St Valentine of Rome.
We met in a small café in York city centre. Valentine was looking well for someone who has been dead for some eighteen hundred years, so we may presume that heaven agrees with him. However, owing to the new spiritual body which he had been given, it was impossible to deduce his age to any great degree of precision, and my enquiries were met with a certain reticence. Over several hot chocolates, however, a picture of a very unusual saint began to emerge.
Christis: What’s your favourite story about yourself?
Valentine: (chuckles) That would probably be the one about the jailer’s daughter. When I was imprisoned, the jailer — nice old bloke, definitely in the wrong job — brought his daughter to me. She was blind, and he wanted to see what I could do. Which was nothing. Funny thing, God, though, isn’t he? One minute I’m talking quite normally to this girl and maybe having a bit of a quiet pray, then suddenly she collapses to the ground complaining the light’s too bright. Jailer was well impressed and she… well, she took a bit of a shine to me. Spent a lot of time together. But I never left her a note. That bit’s been very handy since, mind you.
C: Why’s that?
Valentine: Well, I’m supposed to have left a note to her signed, “Love from your Valentine”. First ever Valentine’s card, geddit? So when Hallmark were looking for a patron saint of greetings card manufacturers, I was the obvious choice. Not complaining, am I? It’s all work.
C: What else do you patronise?
Valentine: Oh, all sorts. Obviously the whole love thang meant that engaged couples and lovers, all that sort of thing, come under my purview. Also I provide protection against the plague, epilepsy and fainting. And, possibly because no-one else wanted it, I got the beekeepers gig.
C: Interesting.
Valentine: About as relevant as the whole love thing.
C: What do you mean?
Valentine: Well, I’m probably saying too much here, but how much do you think I’ve got to do with this ridiculous display of mawkish sentimentality that goes on on my day? Ridiculous. I was just a priest. Sure, I helped God’s people when they were persecuted, but that was my job. When God calls you don’t ask him to ring back later, you know? A few secret marriages, yes, I did that. Helped bring something of God into the lives of a few young people. That’s got nothing to do with this cards and roses romantic nonsense. All pagan, you know.
C: (Wanting to show off his research) Based on the Lupercalia, you mean?
Valentine: Oh, read about that, did you. Yes. Crazy Roman festival where young people met and paired off. Along comes the Christianisation of the empire and the church has a quandary, doesn’t it? Festival’s a big heathen celebration, which they can’t have. But it’s a big POPULAR heathen celebration, so they can’t get rid of it. So they Christianise. The festival’s mid-February, so they decide to stick the love festival on whoever’s got a saint’s day then, which is guess who? Muggins, that’s who. Frankly, I’m not happy about it. I’d rather people remembered me for explaining God’s word well, and possibly for being so confident in the grace given me by my Saviour that I was happy to die for him. Not for starting the world’s most cynical love-in. (He drains his hot chocolate). Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and watch over the board meeting of Portico Cards. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.
And with that he exits.
Subsequent research reveals that there just might be two Saint Valentines, one in Rome and one in Terni, a small town up the road. I briefly wonder if I’ve got the wrong one, but most commentators think they’re the same person. Saint Valentine, not exactly a reluctant saint, but one perhaps remembered for the wrong reasons.