The first Valentine’s Day that my husband and I spent together was in Tobago when we were first engaged. Now, you would think that this couldn’t be bettered, but for the past 28 years we’ve celebrated with a lovely dinner and champagne and every year it gets better and better. One year we happened to be in France and 14^th February dawned warm and sunny. We had a Polish architect at that time, a blonde cougar who was living with a young man who grew marijuana and thought it could cure everything, even your wooden leg. I remember her tripping happily down the drive towards the gardener saying, “Monsieur, isn’t it a beautiful day for love?”. He peered at her bemusedly through a cloud of smoke from the Gitane dangling from his lip, grunted and got back to his digging. Obviously Mme Gardener was not about to get lucky that evening!

But who was St Valentine and why do we celebrate his Saint’s Day with love tokens? Well I have to say the origins are very different from the days of wine and roses we celebrate today.

There is some confusion about who St Valentine was. There are about ten claimants to the title, but perceived wisdom has it that he was a third century bishop in Rome. The then Emperor, Claudius the Cruel – don’t you just love the titles? – needed a strong army and, fearing that a loving relationship didn’t make for fearless soldiers, he banned all marriages. Good old Bishop Valentine thought this mighty unfair so continued to perform secret weddings which saved many a young man from the rigours of the Roman Army. He was duly arrested and while in jail he performed a number of miracles including curing the jailer’s daughter of blindness. Didn’t do him any good as he was clubbed to death and then had his head chopped off, but before he popped his clogs – or rather Roman sandals – he sent a card to the young lady signed ‘from your Valentine’ and the rest, they say, is history.

However, it wasn’t until 496AD that another Pope with another great name, a certain Gelasius, declared 14^th February as Valentine’s Saint’s Day. Up until then the old Roman feast of Lupercalia had been celebrated around that time. This was a much less decorous affair than sending cards as the priests would skin goats and run round the city in a rather priapic state, whacking women with bloody pelts, seemingly a slam dunk way of curing infertility. It was also the custom for young women to put their names in an urn for young men to pick out, rather like an ancient Roman spin the bottle or grab the car keys. So you can understand why old Gelasius was keen to clean this up a bit.

But what does all this to do with the spirit world you may ask? The link is love. I have recently been dipping a toe into the world of healing and what I am learning is that the prime factor in this process is love. Sending love to the affected area seems to do the trick more often than not.

Love is also the most effective defence against evil. If you ever feel threatened, surround yourself with the love of God and he will protect you.

Love should play a huge part in our lives every day, not only towards ourselves (very important) or to our loved ones, but also globally. Just think how powerful we could be if we all banded together to send our love to the world in general – and God knows our poor old world needs it now.

But having said all that, I do hope you had a lovely Valentine’s Day. I know I did and must say that I much prefer champagne and duck with cherry sauce to being whacked with a bloody old goat skin by a randy priest. So thank you St Valentine and Pope Gelasius.

Oh, and by the way, Valentine is not just the patron of lovers but also of beekeepers and those suffering from epilepsy. Just thought you might like to know.

Love Suzi x