The story of Valentine comes from the Roman Martyrology; i.e. the list of Catholic Saints compiled in the early centuries of the Church and continually added to from year to year. Any internet search provides basic information but little else, because so little is known of the fourth century martyr.
What the sites do not provide is the popular “canonization” of saints. Saints get prayed to for a number of reasons. Special prayers, occasionally from the liturgy itself, indicate the saint’s expertise. The faithful determine this. Their call for help from a given saint often has nothing to do with the life of the saint. St. Anthony, for example, heads up the lost and found department. Yet he is the Church’s patron of orators. His tongue has been preserved in a reliquary in Padua because of this. People worldwide, however pray to him when they have lost something.
Others include St. Jude, who takes care of hopeless cases. Florian, who fights fires, and you guessed it, Scholastica, who protects from storms? (last week’s blog entry) Here’s her link: http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-scholastica/
Some prayers are versed, making it easy to remember them. Others are downright hilarious. Most people know----------------or don’t know these:
Dear Saint Anthony O heiliger Sankt Florian,
Please come round, verschon' mein Haus,
Something’s lost zünd' and're an!
And can’t be found.
Florian is from: http://www.feuerwehr-buchen.de/historie/sprueche-und-gebete.html
It’s translation is: O holy St. Florian,
protect my house;
burn the others.
Naturally Valentine is on the list as patron for lovers.
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