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Actually St. Valentine still has his feast today!
He is actually still in the most current martyrology, the official list of saints. (Just because a Saint is not in the martyrology does not mean they can not be venerated either, St. Philomena was never in the martyrology and was a favorite of St.John Vianney.) A friend and I verified this last month when we briefly had our hands on a copy of the martyrology in a bookstore. I do not have a copy because it is $120 and only in Latin. This means that while he is not on the General calendar of the Ordinary Form, with the permission of the Holy See he could be venerated on the particular calendar of a specific place.
So what are general or particular calendars? In 1570 the new missal forced every place to use the list of feast days, more technically called the sanctatorial cycle, of the Church in Rome. So the main focus were saints with a relationship to the city of Rome. Now the calendar changed here and there over the next 400 years but the book, the Missal always included the saints of importance to the people of Rome. Local places would celebrate their own saints, but they also had to celebrate saints who were not venerated outside of Rome. So when the calendar was revised the concept of general, used by everybody, and particular used by one diocese or monestary, was a major emphasis. The number of feasts required  for the whole Chruch was kept to a minimum, ideally only saints who are important to everybody. They also introduced the idea of an optional memorial, such that each pastor can decide if this saint is beneficial to his people. So young parishes might celebrate more young saints, those with greater Jesuit influence would celebrate Jesuit saints. Those saints who are important to a specific diocese are free to be added by the local Bishop with the approval of the Vatican. So in the US we celebrate the American saints, Thanksgiving, and a day of penance in reparation for Roe vs. Wade. These are feasts of the particular calendars of Dioceses in the US.
The idea was rather noble, to foster devotion to the saints by not burying the faithful under saints who are not likely to be their spiritual friends, and emphasizing those who should be given special  devotion. This really did not work out too much in practice because at the same time so many people were trying to destroy piety.

St. Valentine is very much still a saint!
The document "Roman Calendar; Text and Commentary"  which is the document and official commentary which promulgated the revised calendar for the ordinary form, explains why the feast of St. Valentine was removed from the general calendar:
Valentine: Although very ancient, the memorial of this saint is left to particular calendars since little is known concerning him except his name and the fact that he was buried on the Flaminian Way on February 14."
Valentine is not a saint many of us have a personal attachment to him other than to use his name as a noun.
There is also a second reason he is out, because Cyril and Methodius are very important saints, having evangelized a large area. They are not just spiritually important but historically and eccumenically important. Their feast was moved from 7/7 which was within the octave of Peter and Paul to 2/14 the day of Cyril's death. This restores the order of death dates as feast days and states to the East that we honor them not to make a political statement but to honor them as Holy men.

So St. Valentine is a saint, very much still a saint.

posted by: nictitator at 21:47 | link | comments (1) |