Valentine’s Day might land every year February 14th, but for many, the entire month of February is devoted to spreading love as on several days candies, chocolates, teddy bears, flowers, abound in stores, homes, and as office decor, symbolizing our significant others.

Why do we do this?

Well, there are many different stories as to why we celebrate Valentine’s Day. From the Catholic Church’s perspective, there are actually a variety of reasons.

The Church recognizes the name of two saints or martyrs. St. Valentine is the patron saint of lovers, epileptics, and beekeepers. One of the stories relating to St. Valentine was that he was a Roman priest and physician who served during the third century under Emperor Claudius II Gothicus. Emperor Claudius believed that single men made better soldiers, more so than those who have a family or wives. He eventually banned marriage for young men. Valentine realized this was unfair and performed marriages in secret for young lovers. When he was caught, Claudius ordered him to be executed.

Another one of the stories about Valentine is that he may have been killed because he was helping Christians escape Roman prisons where they were often beaten and tortured. 

Another story is that an imprisoned Valentine sent a letter to one of the guard’s daughter with whom he had fallen in love, because she would visit him in his cell. Before he died, in one of his letters, he wrote, “From your Valentine,” a saying commonly even today. 

While the Church observes St. Valentine’s Day in the middle of February, some people believe that in pre-Christian Roman times, the Romans actually observes Lupercalia in February, a festival honoring fertility for Romulus and Remus, the Roman founders and the agricultural god. Because it was thought that a she-wolf took care of the children of the Roman founders, priests from the city-state would congregate at the hallowed cave. For fertility and cleansing, they would sacrifice a goat and a dog, respectively. They believed that by stripping the goat, dipping it in blood, then gently slapping the ladies with the strips, they might increase their fertility throughout the year.

The city’s bachelors would then choose a name from the list of women’s names from a bug urn, and that would be their pairing for the year. These couples usually married in the end.

All these of these stories feature a  romantic figure, aspect, or basically expressing empathy toward others, and explain just why we continue to celebrate Valentine’s Day.