14 FEBRUARY – SAINT VALENTINE (Priest and Martyr)

From The Liturgical Year, by Dom Prosper Guéranger. From In Lumine Fidei.

At Rome, on the Via Flaminia, in the time of the emperor Claudius, the birthday of blessed Valentine, priest and martyr, who after having cured and instructed many persons, was beaten with clubs and beheaded.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Church honours on this fourteenth day of February the memory of the holy Priest Valentine who suffered martyrdom towards the middle of the third century. The ravages of time have deprived us of the details of his life and sufferings so that extremely little is known of our Saint. This is the reason of there being no Lessons of his Life in the Roman Liturgy. His name, however, has always been honoured throughout the whole Church, and it is our duty to revere him as one of our protectors during the Season of Septuagesima. He is one of those many holy Martyrs who meet us at this period of our Year and encourage us to spare no sacrifice which can restore us to, or increase within us, the grace of God.

Pray, then, holy Martyr, for the Faithful, who are so persevering in celebrating your memory. The day of Judgement will reveal to us all your glorious merits: oh intercede for us that we may then be made your companions at the right hand of the Great Judge and be united with you eternally in Heaven.

Antiphon: This Saint fought, even unto death, for the law of his God, and feared not the words of the wicked, for he was set upon a firm rock.

Let us pray: Grant, we beseech you, O Almighty God, that we who solemnise the festival of blessed Valentine, your Martyr, may, by his intercession, be delivered from all the evils that threaten us. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

Also at Rome, the holy martyrs Vitalis, Felicula and Zeno.

At Teramo, St. Valentine, bishop and martyr, who was scourged, committed to prison, and as he remained unshaken in his faith, was taken out of his dungeon in the dead of night and beheaded by order of Placidus, the prefect of the city.

In the same place, the holy martyrs Proculus, Ephebus and Apollonius, who, while watching by the body of St. Valentine, were arrested and put to the sword by the command of the ex-consul Leontius.

At Alexandria, the holy martyrs Bassus, Anthony and Protolicus, who were cast into the sea.

Also the holy martyrs Cyrion, priest, Bassian, lector, Agatho, exorcist, and Moses, who perished in the flames and took their flight to heaven.

In the same city, the Saints Denis and Ammonius, who were beheaded.

At Ravenna, St. Eleuchadius, bishop and confessor.

In Bithynia, the abbot St. Auxentius.

At Sorrento, St. Anthony, abbot, who, when the monastery of Monte Cassino was devastated by the Lombards, withdrew into a solitude of the neighbourhood, where, celebrated for holiness, he passed calmly to his repose in God. His body is daily glorified by many miracles, particularly by the deliverance of possessed persons.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.