St. Valentine by the Rev’d Stuart Ansell

Mark 7:31-37 
Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means, "Be opened!"). At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly. Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. "He has done everything well," they said. "He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak." 
February 14th is a day to take care, for if you don't watch out, Cupid's arrows may dart your way and fill you with love! That may sound quite a pleasant prospect, but remember that Cupid is often presented with a blindfold, because love is blind. In Christian terms this is probably a good thing, since if we're to love our neighbours and our enemies, we probably need a good bit a blindness. But it may not be quite so good for those choosing a mate. 
February 14th is associated with love because around 1477, when the Feast of St Valentine is thought to have started, people believed that this was the day that the birds started mating. This idea may have originated with Chaucer, who wrote: "Valentine's day, when every fowl doth choose his mate." 
Gradually the custom of young men and women writing love letters to their Valentine started, and other traditions, such as pinning bay leaves to your pillow on Valentine's Eve so that you will see your future mate that night in your dreams, have also become associated with this feast. However, as well as two obscure Valentines commemorated on 14 February, there is a still more obscure one associated with 2 May, and Chaucer may have had this date in mind. May is perhaps a more likely month for birds to be building nests! 
The feast day of February 14th was also originally the Roman festival of Lupercalia, the day when traditionally Roman boys drew girls' names in honour of the sex and fertlity goddess, Februata Juno, so was an appropriate day for Christian priests to commandeer for Christian purposes. 
But why St. Valentine? Who was Valentine and why is he associated with love and lovers? 
Valentine is thought to either have been a priest in Rome, or to have been a bishop from Ternia. Both Valentines are commemorated on the same day, and are now largely assumed by scholars to be the same person. At any event, the Roman Valentine was also a physician, and when he himself was imprisoned for giving aid to martyrs in prison in the persecution under Claudius II, he apparently converted the jailer to Christianity by restoring sight to the jailer's daughter. 
Valentine was sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome, who, on finding all his promises to make him renounce his faith a waste of time, ordered him to be beaten and beheaded. But this is where the love interest seems to come in. The reason Saint Valentine was beheaded, was that he continued to marry young couples even though Claudius forbade it. Apparently Claudius thought that married soldiers weren't as effective as single soldiers. Not surprisingly, the soldiers thought otherwise, and Valentine upheld them. After his martyrdom, Valentine became associated with the union of lovers under conditions of duress. 
He died around 270 at Rome and was buried on the Flaminian Way. In William of Malmesbury's time what was known to the ancients as the Flaminian Gate of Rome and is now the Porta del Popolo, was called the Gate of St. Valentine. The name seems to have been taken from a small church dedicated to the saint which was in the immediate neighborhood. 
What is it about Christianity which so grips people that they're prepared to suffer agonising brutality and death rather than renounce their faith? Perhaps Valentine captured the kernel of the Christian message with his willingness to marry young couples no matter what the state said. For the Christian God is not simply a god of love like Cupid or Eros, but is love itself. 
Anyone who has known true love, has known God, for it's impossible to genuinely love without God being part of that process. The romantic love of young lovers produces intense feelings of passion, but after marriage, if things go as they should go, those feelings settle into a depth of love which is rarely so intense, but which grows and deepens and blossoms with each passing year. 
When two people love each other in a good marriage, they're so full of love that it gradually overflows and spreads to other people. First to any family, then to friends, and eventually becomes a real love and concern for strangers too. This is what Jesus showed in his time on earth, and today's Gospel reading when Jesus healed the deaf and dumb man, gives just one example of his great love and concern for all human beings. Those who give a voice to the voiceless today, especially under regimes of terror, are following in the footsteps of Christ himself in the love they show towards their fellow human beings. 
In these days of living together, the Christian Church continues to be insistent on the commitment and contract of marriage because it provides such a wonderful opportunity to experience and respond to God's huge love for us, love which was demonstrated by Jesus Christ in his time on this earth, and which continues in human hearts today. 
Real love is rarely smooth. Sometimes it's coupled with anger or hatred or jealousy or hurt, but if it's genuine love, it will be able to face and overcome all negative emotions. This is what God offers to all human beings - the opportunity to work through all negative aspects of self and to explore and enjoy the depth of happiness that he has waiting for us. The commitment of marriage means a commitment to work through bad times rather than running away from them, and that commitment is rewarded by an increasing knowledge of self and an increasing human love. 
So enjoy St Valentine's Day. Enjoy the romance and excitement of young love, and allow God himself to be part of that love so that it deepens and grows with the years, and eventually overflows to all other human beings.