Today in the 1970 missal is the Feast of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the apostles of the Slavs and co - patrons of Europe. It is NOT the Feast of St. Valentine: at the very most St. Valentine is commemorated in the 1962 rite at low masses in Lent. In one of the more sensible reforms of the calender, St. Valentine was dropped.
It is a myth that St. Valentine is the patron saint of lovers: never has the church ever pronounced this even unofficially in devotional practice, and the modern secular festival has far more in common with pagan fertility cults than christian devotion. He was a priest and a physician in Rome who was imprisoned for giving aid to martyrs in prison, and while there he converted his jailer by restoring sight to the jailer's daughter.
While everyone else is sending each other kitsch, we would do far better to ask the prayers of Sts. Cyril and Methodius for Europe's reconversion, in particular the conversion of Russia.
Sts. Cyril and Methodius, pray for us.
1 comment:
Quite right!
Bah, humbug!
:)
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