Who is St. Valentine?

Valentine's Day has to be one of the most special days of the year.  Many couples are getting engaged and some are even getting married!  Advertisers are selling more ads to boost their sales revenue and hearts are in expectation of what their significant other will get for them as a gift.

This year I decided to do my research on Valentine's Day because I have celebrated this day for as long as I can remember, without understanding its origin. Who is St. Valentine?  Why do we celebrate this day?

Valentine was a holy Roman priest who was martyred for his Christian faith on February 14, 269.  King Claudius II was so impressed with Valentine that he visited him personally in prison before his death to try and convert him to Roman paganism.  St. Valentine would not renounce his faith and Claudius II ordered him to be beheaded.  Before his death, it is said that Valentine performed a miracle for a jailer's daughter by healing her of blindness. Many of the early martyred Christians were also named Valentine.  However, there are no romantic elements present in the early biographies.

Valentine's Day became a day that honored courtly love in the High Middle Ages and was later established by  Pope Gelasius in 496 AD. Later it was deleted from the General Roman Calendar. In 1969 American Greetings added The Golden Legend to history.com that St. Valentine wrote a letter to the young lady who was healed of blindness and signed it St. Valentine, but it has no historical basis what so ever.

So why are we celebrating this day?  We celebrate because we love the idea of being in love and merchants love making money off of the consumer.  I would much rather have another day set aside to celebrate love and use this day to remember those who gave their lives for the sake of Jesus Christ.