Sponsor spotlight: What was Saint Valentine’s signature color?

Once the winter holiday decorations come down, our eyes are bathed in a spectrum of pinks and reds. Every shop window exclaims “Valentine’s Day!” This time of year reminds me of the dialogue in Steel Magnolias when M’Lynn says that the sanctuary for Shelby’s wedding looks like it has “been hosed down with Pepto-Bismol.” Shelby quips that the colors of her wedding are “blush and bashful.” Pink is her signature color.

Are pink and red Saint Valentine’s signature colors? One would presume, as the world has been soaked in every shade of pink and red leading up to Valentine’s Day on Feb. 14, the day many churches celebrate as the Feast Day of Saint Valentine. However, not surprisingly, many people have no idea who Saint Valentine was or what the celebration of his life represents.

Saint Valentine’s hagiography (a biography of a saint or church leader) is actually quite obscure. There are no less than three possible Valentines whose biographical stories might have been conflated into one hagiography. The principal story of his life eliciting a “Valentinian” ethos of love as we know it today goes back to the third century when Valentinus, a Roman priest, married couples in direct violation of the Roman emperor’s ban on engagements and marriages. Instead, Valentinus’ confidence in God’s good institution of marriage compelled him to continue performing weddings. However, due to his strong convictions (Valentinus’ name comes from the Latin valens meaning “strong”), the emperor ordered his death carried out on Feb. 14. One account claims Valentinus sent a letter to his jailor’s daughter, whom he had healed of blindness, signing “Your Valentine.”

However, prior to the 14th century, the saint was not widely associated with romantic love in the way his namesake is celebrated today. It was the 14th-century poet Geoffrey Chaucer who popularized Saint Valentine as the patron saint of love in his poem, The Parliament of Fowls, from The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer was a Christian humorist, that is, he had a high view of God, a humble view of self, and a critical posture combined with a flair for comedy toward other churchgoers whom he perceived lacked humility. In The Parliament of Fowls, Chaucer observed a parade of birds united with their mates on “Seynt Valentynes day” (the old English for Saint Valentine’s Day).

Chaucer does not shy away from the intermingling of Nature and Divine Love in his poem. He enfolded God’s story of love into how birds are paired in nature. So, too, the church calendar follows the seasons much like humans have for thousands of years—recognizing cycles of birth and death, planting and harvest, singleness and marriage. The saint’s days display different colors and shades reflecting the seasons bathed in God’s great story of love through Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall.

Perhaps echoing through the centuries from Chaucer’s Valentine, there is also an “already” and “not yet” to love.  In “The Parliament of Fowls,” while other birds pair off, the eagles do not, possibly conveying unrequited, or at least delayed, love. The reader receives no resolution…yet. Chaucer’s popularization of Saint Valentine conveys a uniting of our human nature—people who love and desire love—who ultimately await the Lover of our souls in love’s ultimate embrace. Further, the story of Saint Valentine through history reminds us to gaze at the One whose love for us is never weak or fading while simultaneously affecting the strong conviction of love that overcomes the contradictions of this world.

— By Dr. Tiffany Ann Butler

Writer in Residence at Holy Trinity Edmonds

Holy Trinity Edmonds
657 Daley St, Edmonds, WA 98020
425- 672-7795
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