The fact that Valentine was a religious man and a priest should not deter you from a romantic evening.
Today is Valentines Day: the day we spend money on our other half. Here’s how it happened. It all started during the heyday of the Roman Empire, which held a festival every February. Lupercian Festival was in honor of the God of Fertility (What did you expect?) and young men would get to choose their mate.
When Claudius became Emperor he changed all of that. Afraid men would refuse to fight in the army because they would not be allowed by their wives to leave the house after 6:00 pm, he outlawed all marriages. Love struck young men, in spite of Claudius’ good intentions still fell in love. Still wishing to marry they took their case to the Catholic Bishop Valentine who, still mad about the celibacy rules, and for revenge, began to secretly marry couples. Claudius found out, and had Valentine arrested and executed. While in jail, Valentine began exchanging letters with the jailer's daughter and soon had fallen in love with her. The day he was to be beheaded, (But not the first man to lose his head over a woman) he wrote to her one last note and signed it: "From Your Valentine”. (You'd think he would sign it: Love, Val?)
In 496 A.D. Christianity had taken over Rome and Pope Gelasius outlawed the pagan Lupercian Festival. Trying to win points with the local Roman beauties, because he made everybody go to church all the time, he replaced it with something more girlie and set aside a day in February to honor the martyr St. Valentine. Even though in 1969 the church removed St. Valentines Day from it's calendar of "official” holidays, because all the statues had no heads, it is still widely celebrated today.
HAPPY VALENTINE”S DAY TO TLW (The Little Woman), MY BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER and DAUGHTER-IN-LAW TO BE: COURTNEY (MAKE SURE HE MAKES A FUSS) AND MOM and ALL FOUR SISTERS, MY NEW BUSINESS PARTNER and ALL YOU LADIES OUT THERE!
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