Читать книгу Blessed Peacemakers - Robin Jarrell - Страница 49

Died ca. 269

The Power of Love

St. Valentine’s feast day has fallen on hard times. It’s become an annual occasion marked by mawkish verse, images of fat cupids shooting arrows into hearts, and binge spending (in 2011, U.S. consumers blew nearly $16 billion on Valentine cards, candy, flowers, and jewels). Even the Roman Catholic Church contributed to the day’s decline by taking if off the General Roman Calendar in 1969. But despite all the marketing hoopla that’s almost swallowed up the day, peacemakers ought to remember it, because at its best it’s a commemoration of the nonviolent power of love.

Not much is known about St. Valentine. He lived in the third century, was a priest in Rome, and was martyred in the final years of the Emperor Claudius II’s reign. Stories about Valentine have him ministering in various ways to persecuted Christians. But the story that best expresses what the saint stands for has it that he secretly married dozens of young Christian couples during a time when Claudius had forbidden male youths from marrying because he wanted them as unencumbered soldiers for his legions. Valentine was discovered officiating at one such wedding and was hauled in chains before Claudius. Once there, he tried to convert the emperor. Enraged at the priest’s presumption, Claudius had him beaten nearly to death and then beheaded.

At least two lessons may be taken from this story. The first is that Valentine is a figure who willingly risked his life for the sake of honoring love, concord, and union between couples. At a time when men of his class were concerned with fighting battles and defeating enemies, Valentine focused instead on blessing the love that binds people together. We still remember today, even if only vaguely and through consumerist lenses, Valentine’s sacrifice and why he made it.

The other lesson is this: love always trumps power. Claudius wound up executing Valentine. But the empire that Claudius ruled has long since crumbled into dust, as must all empires. What endures is the creative, ever-renewing act of love between human beings, which, as history has shown, is powerful enough to resist any kind of illegitimate authority. Love is seditiously defiant of attempts to curtail it or stifle it; it will always find a way to express itself.

The subversive and expressive power of love has begun of late to take back Valentine’s Day and reclaim it as the celebration of love it was intended to be. Environmental and human rights activists have used the holiday as an occasion to encourage lovers to forgo giving one another traditional gifts such as roses, chocolate, and diamonds because of the violence with which they’re produced or acquired. Commercially grown roses pollute soils and waterways with chemical fertilizers and insecticides, chocolates are linked to rainforest despoliation, and diamonds are often mined by Third World workers who for all practical purposes are slaves. Weaning ourselves from the sentimental love of a consumerist holiday restores Valentine’s Day as a celebration of the power of love.