St. Valentine Prayer
The St. Valentine Prayer asks St. Valentine to help us persevere, just as he did, that we will one day achieve the ultimate prize – heaven.
Three St. Valentines are mentioned in the early martyrologies. Two of them achieved martyrdom and one has very little set about him. It is possible that the two accounts of the martyrs refer to one person, who was either a priest of bishop. The Roman Martyrology lists only a St. Valentine (226-269), who was killed on the Via Flaminia.
How did St. Valentine become associated with a holiday for lovers?
There are many other legends behind Saint Valentine. One is that in the 3rd century AD, it is said that Valentine, who was a priest, defied the order of the emperor Claudius and secretly performed Christian weddings for couples, allowing the husbands involved to escape conscription into the pagan army. This legend claims that soldiers were sparse at this time so this was a big inconvenience to the emperor. The account mentions that in order “to remind these men of their vows and God’s love, Saint Valentine is said to have cut hearts from parchment”, giving them to these persecuted Christians, a possible origin of the widespread use of hearts on St. Valentine’s Day.
St. Valentine
What we do know about St. Valentine, is that he stood for the faith and perservered until the end.
May we also have the grace of final perserverence!
St. Valentine Prayer
O glorious advocate and protector, Saint Valentine, look with pity upon our wants, hear our requests, attend to our prayers, relieve by your intercession the miseries under which we labor, and obtain for us the Divine blessing, that we may be found worthy to join thee in praising the Almighty for all eternity; through the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Pray, then, O holy Martyr, for the faithful, who are so persevering in celebrating thy memory. The day of Judgment will reveal to us all thy glorious merits. Oh! intercede for us, that we may then be made thy companions at the right hand of the Great Judge, and be united with thee eternally in heaven.
Let us pray: Grant, we beseech thee, O Almighty God, that we who solemnize the festival of blessed Valentine, Thy Martyr, may, by his intercession, be delivered from all the evils that threaten us. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
(Mention your intentions here)
Saint Valentine, advocate and protector, pray for us.
(Conclude with the following three prayers)
Our Father
Hail Mary
Glory Be
