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LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) - 12 February 2006 Issue

In a couple of days or on February 14, the world celebrates St. Valentine’s Day, now a special day supposedly for romantic lovers.

St. Valentine’s Day used to be a holiday in the Catholic calendar.

Pope Gelasius I, known as the third Pope of African origin, declared it as a feast in the year 496. There is a tale that the holiday was declared to thwart the pagan practice of the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia (in honor of the Faunus, the god of fertility and forest) held traditionally on February 15 where young men and women were paired off as lovers by drawing their names out of an urn.

They say that three St. Valentines with obscure background were recorded as martyred saints under the date February 14. They all lived in the late third century during the reign of Roman Emperor Claudius II that included a priest in ancient Rome, a bishop of Terni (an ancient town of Italy), and a martyr in the Roman province of Africa.

Since nothing is known about the lives of these martyrs, many of the present day legends about St. Valentine were started in the fourteenth century in France and England, where the feast became associated with romantic love.

In 1969, the Church removed it as an official holiday in an effort to trim down the number of saintly festivities of purely legendary origin.

Valentine’s Day continues to retain its significance today because perhaps of the strong commercial value attached to the occasion. Or perhaps because love is something that everyone, without exception, can relate with.

Love is intrinsic in every human culture and obviously the singular factor that motivates, drives and makes possible human attachment to someone or to something. Love does not recognize boundaries, or even limitations, because it is something that is felt first before anything else. Besides, it is free to love for the only thing it requires is to have a heart.

According to the ‘Triangular Theory of Love’ of American psychologist, Robert J. Sternberg, love is characterized by three elements: intimacy, passion and commitment. For him, any of these elements or a combination of them defines the relationship that would constitute love.

For British politician Helen Fisher, love has three phases: lust, attraction, and attachment. She said that love would generally start off the phase strong in passion but weak in the other elements. With the passage of time, however, the other elements may grow and passion may shrink depending upon the individual. What started then as infatuation or empty love may then develop into other fuller types of love. During the stage of attraction, the person concentrates his affection on a single mate and fidelity becomes important. It is only after a person has known a loved one for a long time that he develops a deeper attachment to his partner. It is said that according to scientific studies the transition from the attraction to the attachment phase usually happens in about thirty months. Thereafter, passion fades, changing love from consummate to companionate, or from romantic love to liking.
Love certainly defines the individuality of man, for without it no person would have a meaningful existence. Man’s search for meaning is in fact largely influenced by the way he loves. Since love is an abstract concept, it is easier to experience love than define it. 

Love indeed makes the world go round, as many popular song lyrics would put it. Peace, hope, happiness, success, and charity abound because of love. But it is also the same love that causes war, tragedy, disillusionment, greed, punishments and hostilities.

Love builds but it also destroys. Love is good but it can also be evil. To love is human but it is not necessarily humane. This is how love rules the world.

Only by loving selflessly and for the right reasons would make love true, worthy and meaningful. This is what the world needs now.