I give up. It's a Hallmark holiday.

I'm now convinced that it's a totally fake holiday. Whenever people would tell me in the past that Valentine's Day is nothing more than a plastic holiday used by Hallmark to sell cards, I'd remind them that we are actually celebrating the Feast of St. Valentine.

"What'd he do?"

Hell if I know. I seem to remember him being a Christian martyr but I couldn't tell you anything more about him than that. Still, the whole romantic aspect of the holiday led me to believe he was probably stoned while clutching a heart-shaped box of chocolates or something. There had to be some excuse for the feast turning into Cupids and paste-encrusted cards that first graders are forced to give to other kids that they don't even like.

Anyway, I'll be as romantic as anyone wants on February 15, but I think I'm done celebrating (St.) Valentine's Day. Two reasons why:

1. We don't even know who he is. Here I thought that I was just in the dark as to who Valentine was. As it turns out, the Catholic Church doesn't really know who he is either. They seem to have it narrowed down to three people (that is, if he existed at all): a Roman priest, a bishop from Interamna, or a martyr from Africa. You'd think this would be the kind of thing that the Church would nail down before making the guy a saint, but it seems that back in the late 400s, they were in the habit of naming feasts more for the purpose of overshadowing pagan holidays than honoring real people. This is one of them. Pope Hallmarkius I named February 14 the Feast of St. Valentine in response to the pagan holiday of Lupercalia and stated only that St.Valentine was a man wose name was "justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God." So basically, the Church created Valentine's Day to eliminate a holiday dediated to the Roman god of fertility only to have it turn into a godless, profit driven holiday celebrated with images of the Roman god of erotic love. Ironic, no?

2. The Catholic Church nixed the feast. After the Second Vatican Council, the Church removed feasts dedicated to saints of a purely legendary nature (along with St. George, St. Christopher, etc.). That, or Paul VI just got sick of not having a date every year. Either way, as of 1969, the Feast of St. Valentine is no longer celebrated on February 14.

Good enough for me. From now on, February 14 is Sts. Cyril and Mythodius Day in my book.

P.S. If you came upon this post because you were searching for the words "St. Valentine" and "antisemite," then I feel obliged to inform you that none of the people who may have been St. Valentine--if there was such a person--were antisemites. Heck, one was in North Africa, one was in Rome, and the other was in Interamna...we don't even know where that is, except that it was someplace in Italy. My guess is that none of them encountered a large enough number of Jews to develop an opinion of them one way or the other. Besides, if you're a Christian in the third century Roman empire, then I sincerely doubt you have enough time to persecute another religion anyway. I hope this puts to rest any fears that Catholic saints of dubious existence may have held antisemitic beliefs. Thanks.