From the Chaplains
Valentine’s Day
This week in chapel I invited the girls to enjoy some hot chips, all in the name of Valentine’s Day. Why hot chips? Well, we looked at a passage of scripture where Jesus encourages us to be salty. He says:
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” (Matt 5:13).
The girls enjoyed tasting the chips, trying to work out which bag of chips had regular salt, chicken salt and no salt, and which was the tastiest (chicken salt won, of course). The fact is, we are a nation that loves salt. While salt is associated with many unhealthy foods, back in Jesus’ time salt was highly sort after, used to preserve foods, purifying them of germs and drawing out their flavours.
We spoke about how Jesus encourages each of us to be ‘salty’ when it comes to faith. Yes, faith is a deeply personal treasure, and our school represents a rich and diverse range of faith tradition. But faith also connects us to our world, to each other.
Let me illustrate by sharing a legend behind the first celebration of St Valentines Day.
In modern times, St Valentine’s Day is more closely associated with cards, chocolates and commercial gain, but it has not always been the case. Although the story of the saint and the origins of the feast day are clouded by myth, February 14 has long been celebrated as the day of lovers.
The earliest version of the story dates back to ancient Rome and the pagan spring festival of Lupercalia. Every year in February, the Romans would go about the odd custom of whipping newlywed girls with strips of goat skin to ready them for babies. Very strange, indeed.
Constantine, the first Christian emperor, decided on a more humane way to celebrate the Spring festival by focusing upon the life and story of Saint Valentine. Valentine was supposedly a Roman bishop who in the 260s and 70s secretly conducted weddings for lovers. Valentine would marry Christian soldiers, despite royal decree that they had to go to war.
Valentine was imprisoned by Emperor Aurelius for conducting these secret weddings! But prison did not stop him from bearing love for those around him. While in prison Valentine cured his jailer’s daughter of blindness and the pair fell head over heels in love (quite literally ‘love at first sight’.) Like Titanic, their love was not to be, and he died for his cause on February 14 the following year. On the eve of his death, the condemned man sent a passionate letter to his beloved, signed simply ‘your Valentine’.
His story is about romantic love, yes, but it’s also about living out your beliefs, wherever you may find yourself, it’s about shining in a dark place. I challenged the students by asking them:
What would it look like for you to be salt in your community today?
May God grant us an understanding of how wide, how high, how long and how deep His love is for us, just as we are.
May the Lord bless us and keep us in his love, now and evermore.
Reverend Cass Blake
College Chaplain