The peeps over at Point Loma\u2019s NTC Promenade liked last year\u2019s Valentine\u2019s Day marriage marathon so much that they\u2019ve decided to throw a do-over. On Friday, Feb. 13, 30 couples will either marry or renew their vows there, having been picked from a list of 160 who submitted their testimonies on why they think they\u2019re the coolest candidates. A big fat reception is planned too, with a big fat cake, big fat music and (hopefully) a decided absence of big fat second thoughts. Marriage is one of those enduring institutions, all right, the world\u2019s universally recognized forum for declaration of mutual fidelity \u2013 and if yours is happening on the 13th at NTC, it takes on a special significance. The only drawback is that one of the central figures in the institution\u2019s history won\u2019t be there to perform the ceremony. St. Valentine has been dead since about A.D. 270, brutally martyred in the service of blushing brides all over Rome. There\u2019s not a lot to dish on him officially; in fact, the Roman Catholic Church recognizes several St. Valentines, and as recently as A.D. 1969, the guy in question didn\u2019t even appear by name on the Church\u2019s feast day calendar. The unofficial story, though, waxes folkloric \u2013 so as you fire up the “I dos” and break out the golden handc- \u2014 er, rings \u2014 you might want to give it up for an unsuspecting little sort who\u2019s there in spirit, the bearer of many standards for marriage\u2019s very public place in the very public mind. The ancient Romans held the feast of Lupercalia, designed to purify the city and promote fertility, every mid-February. Magistrates ran around naked in the streets; dogs and goats were sacrificed; crowds donned the animals\u2019 skins, called februa, in imitation of the fertility god Lupercus; and young women lined the parade routes to receive lashes, which were thought to prevent sterility and ward off evil spirits. The whippings live on today in some Easter Monday ceremonies \u2013 other than that, Lupercalia was about as un-Christian as it gets. Christianity, after all, didn\u2019t really take root in Rome until Emperor Constantine spearheaded its growth around A.D. 500 \u2013 but Valentinus, a Roman temple priest, precursed Constantine by about 250 years, and he came to symbolize matrimony\u2019s otherworldly nature even then. Despite the oppressive Emperor Claudius II\u2019s ban on Christian marriage rites, Valentinus wed young couples underground by the score. The jig was soon up amid word of mouth, and Valentinus was jailed for crimes against the state. He was eventually beaten and stoned for his trouble \u2014 incredibly, he lived through the assaults, finally succumbing via decapitation. But it\u2019s his stretch in stir that marks Val\u2019s place in legend. For whatever reason, the jailer Asterius took a liking to his prisoner, and his blind daughter Julia would bring the captive food on the sly, as well as messages from the outside. In return, the priest taught Julia arithmetic and her ABCs and regaled her with stories on the history of Rome. All the while, Julia pined for her sight as the key to truly experiencing the lore she could only hear. Soon, fate intervened in Julia\u2019s life a second time. On Feb. 14, 270, her friend was whisked away to his end, but not before he\u2019d left her a note extolling the richness life has to offer. The signature said, “From your Valentine.” What\u2019s more, Julia could read it. Thus inspired, Julia is said to have planted an almond tree at Valentinus\u2019 grave, near what is now the Church of Praxedes in Rome. The almond tree \u2013 like the archetypal card Valentinus left for Julia \u2013 is today a symbol of love and friendship the world over. In A.D. 496, Pope Gelasius declared Feb. 14 St. Valentine\u2019s Day. In so doing, he started something that the secular community has run with in kind ever since. Hallmark says that it expects 163 million Valentine\u2019s Day cards to be sent nationwide this year; in 2008, holiday spending topped $17 billion, with a “b.” In many ways, Christmas is the only other holiday that commands such public anticipation, to say nothing of lofty receipts. But Christmas, see, is a long way off. And besides, as Bob Cratchit is keen to remind us every season, it\u2019s only once a year. Valentine\u2019s Day is supposedly the flashpoint for romantic idealism every single day. In no way is the concept even close to the reality; according to the Forest Institute for Professional Psychology, a whopping 74 percent of third marriages end in divorce in America. Val\u2019s probably not too happy about that, especially since his life story is designed around a diametrically opposite ideal. \u2014 Martin Jones Westlin is the editor of San Diego Downtown News, a sister publication in the San Diego Community Newspaper Group.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The peeps over at Point Loma\u2019s NTC Promenade liked last year\u2019s Valentine\u2019s Day marriage marathon so much that they\u2019ve decided to throw a do-over. On Friday, Feb. 13, 30 couples will either marry or renew their vows there, having been picked from a list of 160 who submitted their testimonies on why they think they\u2019re […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":284802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"St. Valentine is way more than a central figure","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11552,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-opinion","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}