Are you laughing with the sinners or crying with the saints this Valentine's Day? Billy Joel likes laughing with the sinners. Me? I'm still deciding.
Okay, I'll admit while grade school going for brownie points with the good nuns kept me crying with the saints. As Feb. 14th approached, I fully rejected the other saints because why waste time with second rate saints when St. Valentine himself was purported to have the highest success rate in manufacture the love connection? But, sigh, those days are long gone. So what about today's allinclusive perspective of St. Valentine? Has belief changed at all?
In 2012, some people still demand if St. Valentine holds the narrative in the Saints Hall of Fame for putting lovers together. I literally asked nearby to get an answer. A skeptic on love I've known for years burst out laughing when I poled him. "Holds the record? Don't be ridiculous." Then he told me St. Valentine wasn't even a real saint. What? Not a real saint? That man must be the devil himself I belief confidentially because St. Valentine was a true card-carrying saint and, to this day, there is a small shrine to him in a Carmelite Church in Dublin. Seriously. Some of my relatives - whose last names kept changing with O's dropped off or added on - literally visited that shrine. How else would I be able to explain all those smiling Hurley and McCart Irish eyes? And, according to Wikipedia, there allegedly are relics of St. Valentine at the reliquary of Foquemaure in France, in the Stephansdom, in Vienna and also in Blessed John duns Scotus' Church in Glasgow, Scotland. Merciful heaven, could there have been more than one St. Valentine? Now I'm literally implicated if my prayers are landing in the lap of the right saint!
Obviously, many nationalities want to claim a part of St. Valentine. But, if I had to say which group I belief deserved the prize for the deepest devotion for relics, I believe my Italian friends win for honoring him the most. In Cosmedin, Rome, right there in the Basilica of Santa Maria, one can literally view St. Valentine's flower crowned skull! How's that for a heart stopper! So I think Italy deserves first place.
And, speaking of a heart skipping a beat, every kid who ever attended grammar school remembers those valentine boxes all decorated with white paper doilies and pink and red hearts. What fun we had picking out the perfect one for that kid we had a crush on. One year the object of my true puppy affection stole the show for the best Valentine when he walked right up to my desk and handed me an entire box of chocolates. I was ecstatic, said thank you and then lifted the satin lid on the box. Whoa, half the chocolates were gone. Vertigo set in. It was like being stunned with a can of mace especially after he told me he only ate the ones with nuts.
In high school that crying with the saint's thing wasn't much fun anymore so that's when laughing with the sinners went hormonal. That's also when I noticed how fast the back row in the local movie theater filled up. These movie opportunities for feeling groovy and laughing with the sinners presented an accident cause for examination of known for any girl wearing a uniform especially one deeply captivated by the gloriously painful and tortured lives of the martyrs and saints. Yes, we girls in knee socks were called daily to demonstrate an exemplary life just as those models of sell out did! Oh, what to do as we struggled with our good angel and bad angel on whether shoulder.
By now you may be wondering if I ever did study some saints who laughed and smooched on Valentine's Day? Did I ever study some saints who said they wanted the most valentines and the biggest box of chocolates? Now, remember Valentine's Day preceded Lent. So added to my consternation - and I'm talking for weeks beforehand - were the nuns' polite hourly reminders to give up those occasions of sin, dispense with those worldly pleasures we liked and say no to all fun. They said it would make us morally stronger.
They got to me. I gave up. Just proclaimed out loud to every friend within hearing distance, "I'm going back to crying with the saints and I'll give up kissing!" I was fully miserable for an hour until that kid who gave me the chocolates told me we had an exemption of our sacrifices on St. Joseph's Day, St. Patrick's Day and every Sunday. Hallelujah!
So to all my crying saintly friends, here's to a Happy Valentine's Day from this persisting deliberator whether you are on the dance floor, in a basilica or in the confessional wishing you were laughing with the sinners instead of crying with the saints.
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