Saint Valentine

[Maggie Mae]

So one of my fundie-light "friends" (Actually, our parents were friends when we were young and I think my parents are still close with her parents but they are no where near as devout as she is. Strange and slightly religious, yes. Judgmental and hypocritical? Not that I've ever seen.) on Facebook just posted a statue update about how she had to teach someone that there was a Saint Valentine, and how sad it is that not everyone knows what they are celebrating and bla bla bla.

I had no idea this was a thing. I mean, I can actually see the point (not that I agree with it) that "Jesus is the reason for the season" at Christmas. That makes sense to me. I don't agree that Jesus is the only reason we celebrate Christmas, but I understand why people would believe that.

But Valentine's Day? I don't think anyone even knows who St Valentine is or did or even if there was more than one St Valentine. No one knows anything about him, and last I heard, the Catholic Church took him off the menu of Saints they celebrate.

So has anyone else seen this? Or is my "friend" just insane? She also posts this kind of stuff at Easter and other random religious holidays that people also celebrate in the secular world.

[yewchapel]

So one of my fundie-light "friends" (Actually, our parents were friends when we were young and I think my parents are still close with her parents but they are no where near as devout as she is. Strange and slightly religious, yes. Judgmental and hypocritical? Not that I've ever seen.) on Facebook just posted a statue update about how she had to teach someone that there was a Saint Valentine, and how sad it is that not everyone knows what they are celebrating and bla bla bla.

I had no idea this was a thing. I mean, I can actually see the point (not that I agree with it) that "Jesus is the reason for the season" at Christmas. That makes sense to me. I don't agree that Jesus is the only reason we celebrate Christmas, but I understand why people would believe that.

But Valentine's Day? I don't think anyone even knows who St Valentine is or did or even if there was more than one St Valentine. No one knows anything about him, and last I heard, the Catholic Church took him off the menu of Saints they celebrate.

So has anyone else seen this? Or is my "friend" just insane? She also posts this kind of stuff at Easter and other random religious holidays that people also celebrate in the secular world.

I haven't seen anything like this....I mean some of my more evangelical Christian friends (I am a non-evangelical Christian) have been using it either to talk about God's love for us and occasionally to use the traditional story of St Valentine to talk about this. But nothing like a 'reason for the season' type thing. St Valentine is not on the Roman Catholic calendar of saints but is on the Anglican one, I don't know about other churches that follow a liturgical calendar. It is fairly common knowledge amongst the Christians I know that St Valentine is semi-mythological along the lines of St Catherine of Alexandria or St Christopher.