I've always liked Valentines Day. In second grade I loved going to the store and carefully selecting my valentines (Disney Princesses? Strawberry Shortcake? Pound Puppies? Rainbow Bright? The possibilities were endless.) In junior high I loved eating mass quantities of candy hearts. In college I loved eating an entire pint of Ben and Jerry's while watching romantic movies with my girlfriends. And now I love wearing extremely girly clothes and decorating sugar cookies with the kids I work with. Any holiday that encourages the consumption of dark chocolate and the wearing of pink gets my full support.
I decided to do a little sleuthing about the origins of Valentines Day and discovered (gasp!) an ancient Roman holiday and (another gasp!) an attempt to Christianize it. Apparently the Romans celebrated a fertility holiday in February called Lupercalia. Beginning on February 15th, an order of Roman priests called the Luperci would sacrifice a goat (for fertility) and a dog (for purification) at the cave where Romulus and Remus were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The boys of the town then sliced the goat's hide into strips, dipped them in blood and went around the city gently slapping women and fields of crops. This was supposed to make them fertile for the coming year.
According to legend, when the goat hide slapping came to an end, the Roman women placed their names in a large urn. The bachelors of the city would then choose a name out of the urn and be paired with that woman for a year. These matches often resulted in marriage.
The early Christians weren't so crazy about most of these rituals and Pope Gelasius I (492-496) outlawed Lupercalia. However, the people seemed to like the drawing the name out of the urn idea, so they started the custom of drawing the names of saints out of a box. You were supposed to try to emulate the saint that you drew for the next year. That means if you picked Simeon Stylites, you got to spend a year on top of a pillar. Hey, this could be a great "spin the bottle" option for youth groups!
So if you are without a significant other on Valentines Day, be grateful that you are not being slapped with a piece of bloody goat. There are worse things than being single.
Happy Chocolate Day!
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Our youth group is playing, "Spin the Bottle: Heretics Edition." Each time the bottle is spun, a new heretic is up for grabs. For instance, a kid might get Michael Cervatus, and we'd say, "Congratulations! You're a 16th century dynamic monarchianist who thought Arius was pretty awesome! Please proceed to the church parking lot!" It hasn't quite caught on yet.
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