Valentine is a special season where affection and true love is usually expressed in the form of gifts, greeting cards, or messages to a loved one. It is celebrated on the 14th of February.
BRIEF HISTORY OF VALENTINE
Valentine’s day or the feast of Saint Valentine originated from the Western Christian who set aside a particular day to celebrate the death of Saint Valentine who was killed because he laid down his life so that couples may be united in marriage.
It became a day of celebration of true love and affection and was marked by feasting of the brethren in church and sharing gifts to the poor and needy.
THE DRIFT IN CELEBRATION OF VALENTINE
The true essence of Valentine’s day is TRUE LOVE! It is supposed to be a day when married couples reaffirm their love, friends exchange small tokens of affections, family spend time to reunite and a season where sacrifices are made to express genuine love to the less privilege, the orphans and those in dire need of love.
These days however, secularism appears to trivialize such a very important event that should be a source of great joy to humanity. In the secular world, Valentine’s day has become restricted to and associated with ‘romantic love’, young girls have made it compulsory to receive gifts from the opposite sex (I don’t mean their loving dad’s or a caring male relative), guys who they feel are sexually attracted to them and vice versa and if unfortunately for them, they do not have any ‘prospective guy’ before that day, they would do anything just to make sure they get one, some of which include engaging in sexual acts in exchange for small tokens of gifts and affection from them, some even go as far as dating elderly men (sugar daddy) just to receive expensive gifts from them so they can show off to their friends and join the league of ‘the big girls in town’. Even young guys see the day as an opportunity for them to get “free sex”, they lure many girls into bed by buying them gifts with the bad motive of sleeping with them. Indeed the destinies of many have been destroyed on the bed of lust all in the name of Valentine! This shouldn’t be the case at all.
Valentine’s Day should teach us about sacrifice, it should be about promoting the spirit of giving and sharing with the right motive of genuine love, it is about nurturing our families, rekindling the fire of loyalty among friends and lover, and most importantly reaching out to those who are needy of love.
CONCLUSION
I believe strongly that a world devoid of true love would be an empty world, it takes genuine love to heal the broken hearted and to melt the heart of stones and one of the ways to do this is through the celebration of VALENTINE! By so doing, peace will permeate the whole of humanity.
