Patrick Comerford
Sunday next, 14 February 2021, is the Sunday before Lent, or Transfiguration Sunday. The options for the Sunday between 11 and 17 February (Proper 1) should not be used, as these apply only in years when this Sunday comes before the Second Sunday before Lent.
The readings in the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) as adapted for use in the Church of Ireland for Sunday next are:
The Readings: II Kings 2: 1-12; Psalm 50: 1-6; II Corinthians 4: 3-6; and Mark 9: 2-9.
We should also remember that many people, especially young couples, are more likely to think of 14 February as Saint Valentine’s Day instead of the Sunday before Lent.
Witth this in mind, there are some additonal notes on Saint Valentine, and some appopriate liturgical resources and suggestions at the end of this posting.
Celebrating the Transfiguration:
The two Sundays before Lent have special themes outside the cycle of readings in Ordinary Time. The Second Sunday before Lent focusses on Creation, while the Sunday before Lent is Transfiguration Sunday.
In early Church tradition, the Transfiguration is connected with the approaching death and resurrection of Christ, and so it was said to have taken place 40 days before the Crucifixion.
At first, the feast of the Transfiguration belonged to the pre-Easter season of the Church and was celebrated on one of the Sundays of Lent. For example, a sermon on the Transfiguration was preached in Lent by Saint John Chrysostom while he was a priest in Antioch in 390. The Feast of the Transfiguration was celebrated on Mount Sinai from the mid-fifth century, and in Constantinople from the late seventh century. Saint Gregory Palamas, the great teacher of the Transfiguration, is commemorated during Lent.
From 1474 until at least 1969, the Transfiguration was observed in the Roman Catholic Church on the Second Sunday in Lent. In some modern calendars, including Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican calendars, the Transfiguration is now commemorated on the Sunday immediately before Ash Wednesday, although traditionally, the Feast of the Transfiguration is also observed in the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Orthodox calendars on 6 August. It may have been moved there because 6 August is 40 days before 14 September, the Feast of the Holy Cross, so keeping the tradition that the Transfiguration took place 40 days before the Crucifixion.
Among Anglicans, the Feast of the Transfiguration disappeared from the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. When it reappeared in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, it returned to the calendar but without any other provisions.
In The Book of Common Prayer (2004), the Church of Ireland has Collects and Post-Communion prayers for the Feast of the Transfiguration on 6 August, along with this provision to mark the Transfiguration on the Sunday before Lent.
In the Orthodox Church, the Feast of the Transfiguration is a major feast, and is counted among the Twelve Great Feasts of the Church. This is also the second of the ‘Three Feasts of the Saviour in August.’ These are:
● The Procession of the Cross (1 August).
● The Transfiguration (6 August).
● The ‘Icon of Christ Not Made by Hands’ (16 August).
But the Transfiguration is also associated with ordinations: from the time of Pope Leo the Great (died 460), the Transfiguration was the Gospel reading set for Ember Saturday, the day before ordinations.
II Kings 2: 1-12:
The first reading is the story of Elijah ascending in the chariot of fire in a whirlwind into heaven.
Israel has split into two kingdoms: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. At the time of this reading (850-849 BC), Ahaziah is King of Israel. The Bible describes only two people as worthy enough to be taken up to heaven without dying: Enoch (Genesis 5: 24) and Elijah.
Elijah and Elisha start their journey at Gilgal, in the hill country north of Bethel. On three occasions, Elijah invites Elisha to travel no further, and he tests Elisha, to see whether he is truly loyal. Elisha proves his loyalty each time, and so the two travel south from Gilgal to Bethel, then east to Jericho and the Jordan.
The ‘company of prophets’ are communities of followers, disciples, of Elijah. They are like monks, and traditions about them have become part of the story of the Carmelite order.
Elijah’s mantle or cloak is almost part of him. When the waters part, readers would recall the crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus 14) and the Ark being carried across the Jordan (Joshua 3: 14-17).
Elijah offers Elisha a reward for his loyalty. Elisha asks that he receive a double share or the principal part of Elijah’s spirituality. Custom and law said the eldest son should inherit a double portion of his father’s possessions (see Deuteronomy 21: 17). Elijah cannot grant this request himself, for it is God’s to give. If Elisha sees Elijah taken up, God will grant the wish. Fire is a symbol of God’s presence, and recalls how God appeared in the burning bush (see Exodus 3: 2).
What is happening in verse 12? Perhaps Elisha is comparing the chariots of God with the chariots of Israel; perhaps he recognises that Elijah’s spiritual strength is better security for Israel than its army. Elisha sees Elijah’s departure. Tearing clothes is still a Jewish tradition in expressing grief.
In the verses that follow, Elisha picks up Elijah’s mantle, the symbol of spirituality. Elijah has been taken up to heaven, and Elisha is his successor.
Psalm 50: 1-6:
Psalm talks 50 is about God who shines forth and who being revealed in glory. This psalm is a liturgy of divine judgment.
God calls summons the whole earth and the heaven above to witness his legal judgment of the ungodly. In Zion, or Jerusalem, he shows himself in traditional Biblical ways: in fire and tempest (verse 3). This is the God of heaven and earth (verse 4).
He is both judge (verse 6) and prosecutor (‘testify,’ verse 7), and the heavens declare his righteousness (verse 6).
II Corinthians 4: 5-12:
In this Epistle reading, the Apostle Paul writes about the minds of unbelievers being blinded, while our eyes should be focussed on the light of the Gospel, which is the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, and of light shining out of darkness.
Saint Paul is continuing to answer a letter from the Church in Corinth. It seems some Church members there have criticised him for failing to make clear the good news, or for limited success in bringing people to Christ.
Now, in this reading, Saint Paul defends himself, saying that, despite what some may say, he proclaims not himself but Jesus Christ as Lord (verse 5).
He quotes the first words God speaks in the Bible, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’ (verse 6, see Genesis 1: 3). He points out that God begins the process of creation with light, and this light is ‘the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’
Despite our sufferings in this world, the life of Jesus is made visible in the way we live (verse 11).
The Transfiguration by Aidan Hart … in the Transfiguration, both the humanity and divinity of Christ are manifested to usThe Transfiguration
The Transfiguration is described in the three Synoptic Gospels (see Matthew 17: 1-9; Mark 9: 2-8; Luke 9: 28-36). In addition, there may be allusions to the Transfiguration in John 1: 14 and in II Peter 1: 1-18, where Peter describes himself as an eyewitness ‘of his sovereign majesty.’
The Synoptic accounts of the Transfiguration are very similar in wording.
So, what is different between Saint Mark’s account of the Transfiguration and the accounts in the other two Synoptic Gospels?
Saint Mark, like Saint Matthew, tells us these events take place ‘six days later,’ although Saint Luke says they take place ‘eight days later.’
All three accounts tell us that Christ’s robes become dazzling white, but Saint Mark alone tells us they are a white ‘such as no one on earth could bleach them’ (verse 3).
Saint Mark also tells us the three disciples were ‘terrified.’
A modern icon of the Transfiguration … the Transfiguration also points to Christ’s great and glorious Second Coming and the fulfilment of the Kingdom of GodTelling the story
Should we describe the Transfiguration as a miracle? If we do, then it is the only Gospel miracle that happens to Christ himself. On the other hand, Saint Thomas Aquinas spoke of the Transfiguration as ‘the greatest miracle,’ because it complemented Baptism and showed the perfection of life in Heaven.
Saint Peter’s reference to the booths could imply that the Transfiguration took place during the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, when Biblical Jews were camping out in the fields for the grape harvest. This Feast also recalled the wanderings in the wilderness recorded in the Book Exodus.
None of the Gospel accounts identifies the ‘high mountain’ by name. The earliest identification of the mountain as Mount Tabor was by Jerome in the late fourth century. But does it matter where the location is?
Consider the place of Mountains in the salvation story and in revelation:
● Moses meets God in the cloud and the burning bush on Mount Sinai, and there receives the tablets of the Covenant (Exodus 25 to 31);
● Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (I Kings 18);
● Elijah climbs Mount Sinai and finds God not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire, but in the still small voice in the cleft of the Mountain (I Kings 19: 12);
● The Sermon, which is the ‘manifesto’ of the new covenant, is the Sermon on the Mount;
● The Mount of Olives is a key location in the Passion narrative;
● Christ is crucified on Mount Calvary;
● Saint John receives his Revelation in the cave at the top of the mountain on Patmos.
As for the cloud, all three Synoptic Gospels describe the cloud’s descent in terms of overshadowing (επισκιαζειν, episkiazein), which in Greek is a pun on the word tent (σκηνάς, skenas). But this is also the same word used to describe the Holy Spirit overshadowing the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation: καὶ δύναμις ὑψίστου ἐπισκιάσει σοι (Luke 1: 35).
We may recall how the pillar of cloud leads the people through the wilderness by day, just as the pillar of fire leads them by night. Moses entered the cloud on Mount Sinai (Exodus 24: 18), the Shekinah cloud is the localised manifestation of the presence of God (Exodus 19: 9; 33: 9; 34: 5; 40: 34; II Maccabees 2: 8).
The cloud takes Christ up into heaven at the Ascension (Acts 1: 9-10).
Saint Paul talks about the living and the dead being caught up in the cloud to meet the Lord (I Thessalonians 4: 17).
The Transfiguration … a fresco in an Orthodox church in the USThe principle characters:
Christ is the focus of the Transfiguration, but who are the other principle characters in this story?
1, The Trinity: in Orthodox theology, the Transfiguration is not only a feast in honour of Christ, but a feast of the Holy Trinity, for all three Persons of the Trinity are present at that moment:
● God the Father speaks from heaven: ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him’ (Matthew 17: 5).
● God the Son is transfigured.
● God the Holy Spirit is present in the form of a cloud.
In this sense, the Transfiguration is also considered the ‘Small Epiphany’ – the ‘Great Epiphany’ being the Baptism of Christ, when the Holy Trinity appears in a similar pattern).
2, Moses and Elijah: At the Transfiguration, Christ appears with Moses and Elijah, the two pre-eminent figures of Judaism, standing alongside him. Saint John Chrysostom explains their presence in three ways:
● They represent the Law and the Prophets – Moses receives the Law from God, and Elijah is a great prophet.
● They both experience visions of God – Moses on Mount Sinai and Elijah on Mount Carmel.
● They represent the living and the dead – Elijah, the living, because he is taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire (see the first reading for this day), and Moses, the dead, because he does experience death.
Moses and Elijah show that the Law and the Prophets point to the coming of Christ, and their recognition of and conversation with Christ symbolise how he fulfils ‘the law and the prophets’ (Matthew 5: 17-19). Moses and Elijah also stand for the living and dead, for Moses dies and his burial place is known, while Elijah is taken alive into heaven in order to appear again to announce the time of God’s salvation.
It was commonly believed that Elijah would reappear before the coming of the Messiah (see Malachi 4), and the three interpret Christ’s response as a reference to Saint John the Baptist (Matthew 17: 13).
3, The Disciples: Saint Peter, Saint James and Saint John are with Christ on the mountain top. But, we may ask, why these three disciples?
Do you remember how this might relate to Moses and Elijah? Moses ascends the mountain with three trusted companions, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, to confirm the covenant (Exodus 24: 1), and God’s glory covers the mountain in a cloud for six days (Exodus 25 to 31).
In some ways, Saint Peter, Saint James and Saint John serve as an inner circle or a ‘kitchen cabinet’ in the Gospels. Perhaps this intimacy is reflected in the fact that they are the only disciples who are given nickname by Christ: Simon becomes the Rock, and James and John are the sons of thunder (Luke 5: 10).
They are at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17: 1, Mark 9: 2; Luke 9: 28), but they are also at the raising of the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5: 35-43; Luke 6: 51), they are at the top of the Mount of Olives when Christ is about to enter Jerusalem (Mark 13: 3), they help to prepare for the Passover (Luke 22: 8), and they are in Gethsemane (Matthew 26: 37).
Jerome speaks of Saint Peter as the rock on which the Church is built, Saint James as the first of the apostles to die a martyr’s death, Saint John as the beloved disciple.
They are a trusted group who also serve to represent us at each moment in the story of salvation.
The meaning of the Transfiguration:
The Transfiguration of Christ in itself is the fulfilment of all of the Theophanies and manifestations of God, a fulfilment made perfect and complete in the person of Christ. We could say the Transfiguration is the culmination of Christ’s public life, just as his Baptism is its starting point, and his Ascension its end. As Archbishop Michael Ramsey writes in his book, The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ: ‘The Transfiguration stands as a gateway to the saving events of the Gospel.’
The Transfiguration reveals Christ’s identity as the Son of God. In the Gospel, after the voice speaks, Elijah and Moses have disappeared, and Christ and the three head down the mountain. The three ask themselves what he means by ‘risen from the dead’ (Mark 9: 9-10). When they ask Christ about Elijah, he responds: ‘Elijah is indeed coming and will restore all things; but I tell you that Elijah has already come …’ (Mark 9: 12-13). He tells them to keep these things a secret until the Son of Man has risen from the dead. Yet, in keeping with the Messianic secret, he tells the three not to tell others what they have seen until he has risen on the third day after his death.
Event and process
The Transfiguration is both an event and a process. The original Greek word for Transfiguration in the Gospel accounts is μεταμόρφωσις (metamorphosis), which gives us access to a deeper and more theological meaning, a deeper truth, than the word derived from the Latin transfiguratio, which can be translated by ‘to be changed into another from.’ But the Greek μεταμόρφωσις means ‘to progress from one state of being to another.’ Consider the metamorphosis of the chrysalis into the butterfly.
Saint Paul also uses the word μεταμόρφωσις when he describes how the Christian is to be transfigured, transformed, into the image of Christ (II Corinthians 3: 18).
The metamorphosis invites us into the event of becoming what we have been created to be. This is what Orthodox writers call deification. Transfiguration is a profound change, by God, in Christ, through the Spirit. And so, the Transfiguration reveals to us our ultimate destiny as Christians, the ultimate destiny of all people and all creation to be transformed and glorified by the majestic splendour of God himself.
The Transfiguration points to Christ’s great and glorious Second Coming and the fulfilment of the Kingdom of God, when all of creation will be transfigured and filled with light. The vision of Christ in his glory and the experience of the divine light are at the very heart of both Orthodox mysticism and Orthodox eschatology. The ‘uncreated light’ is a hallmark theme in Orthodox spirituality, especially in the writings of Saint Gregory Palamas and the school of the thought that is hesychasm, which draws constantly on the themes of the Transfiguration.
Saint Gregory Palamas distinguishes between the essence of God, which is beyond human apprehension, and the energies of God, which are the ways in which we can experience and know God. According to him, the light of the Transfiguration ‘is not something that comes to be and then vanishes.’ Rather, Christ’s disciples experienced a transformation of their senses so that ‘they beheld the Ineffable Light where and to the extent that the Spirit granted it to them.’
This was, therefore, not only a prefiguration of the eternal blessedness to which all Christians look forward, but also of the Kingdom of God already revealed, realised and come.
In Orthodox theology, since Patristic times, the three booths or tents that the three disciples want to erect represent three stages of salvation:
● Virtue, which is the active life of ascetic struggle, and which is represented by Elijah.
● Spiritual knowledge, which requires right discernment in natural contemplation or contemplation of the natural order, which was disclosed by Moses.
● Theology, which means contemplation of God, which requires the consummate perfection of wisdom, and which was revealed by Christ.
Concluding images:
In a lecture in Cambridge ten years ago [2011], Metropolitan Kallistos [Ware], the pre-eminent Orthodox theologian in England, spoke of the Transfiguration as a disclosure not only of what God is but of what we are. The New Adam shows us human nature as it was before the fall. The Transfiguration looks back to the beginning, but also looks forward to the end, to the final glory of Christ’s second coming, because through the incarnation Christ raised human nature to a new level, opening new possibilities.
The incarnation is a new beginning for the human race, and in the Transfiguration we see not only our human nature at the beginning, but as it can be in and through Christ at the end, he told the Summer School in Sidney Sussex College organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.
Secular Christianity rests satisfied with our human nature as it is now. But he wants us to look to our potentialities, as seen in the Transfiguration of Christ. The light of the Transfiguration embraces all created things, nothing is irredeemably secular, all created things can be bathed in the light of the Transfiguration.
He also referred to Revelation 21: 5, where Christ tells the Seer of Patmos: ‘Behold, I make all things new’ – not: ‘Behold, I make all new things.’ The Transfiguration is a pre-figuration of the transfiguration of the cosmos, he said.
But with the Transfiguration comes the invitation to bear the cross with Christ. Peter, James and John were with Christ on Mount Tabor and with him in Gethsemane. We must understand the Passion of Christ and the Transfiguration in the light of each other, not as two separate mysteries, but aspects of the one single mystery. Mount Tabor and Mount Calvary go together; and glory and suffering go together.
If we are to undertake the task of Transfiguration, we cannot leave our cross behind. If we are to bring the secular, fallen world into the glory of Christ, that has to be through self-emptying κένωσις (kenosis), cross-bearing and suffering. There is no answer to secularism that does not take account of the Cross, as well taking account of the Transfiguration and the Resurrection.
The Transfiguration provides a guideline for confronting the secular world, he said. And he retold a story from Leo Tolstoy, Three Questions. The central figure is set a task of answering three questions:
What is the most important moment? The most important moment is now, the past is gone, and the future does not exist yet.
Who is the most important person? This person who is before you in this very instant.
What is the most important task? This task which you are engaged in here and now.
The light which shone from Christ on the mountaintop is not a physical and created light, but an eternal and uncreated light, a divine light, the light of the Godhead, the light of the Holy Trinity.
The experience on Mount Tabor confirms Saint Peter’s confession of faith which reveals Christ as the Son of the Living God. Yet Christ remains fully human as ever he was, as fully human as you or I, and his humanity is not abolished. But the Godhead shines through his body and from it.
In Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead. But at other points in his life, the glory is hidden beneath the veil of his flesh. What we see in Christ on Mount Tabor is human nature, our human nature, taken up into God and filled with the light of God. ‘So this should be our attitude to the secular world,’ Metropolitan Kallistos said.
Or, as the Revd Dr Kenneth Leech once said: ‘Transfiguration can and does occur “just around the corner,” occurs in the midst of perplexity, imperfection, and disastrous misunderstanding.’
Some questions to consider
Is this a more appropriate time for celebrating the Transfiguration?
Can you identify with Saint Peter’s hasty response?
Or do you sometimes feel terrified in the presence of God, and know not what to do?
Saint Matthew alone has Christ telling the three disciples: ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’ (Matthew 17: 7). What are people’s fears today? What role have we in calming those fears and in reassuring people of the presence of Christ?
Where do you think people can be brought to see Christ today? In the Church? In the poor? In themselves?
Look at verse 9. Is there an appropriate time for mission and an inappropriate time?
Mark 9: 2-9 (NRSVA):
2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5 Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ 6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ 8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
Liturgical Resources:
Liturgical Colour: White (Transfiguration) or Green (the Sunday before Lent).
Note the liturgical colour returns to Green for Monday and Tuesday, and then turns to Violent on Wednesday 17 February 2021 (Ash Wednesday).
Penitential Kyries:
Your unfailing kindness, O Lord, is in the heavens,
and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Your righteousness is like the strong mountains,
and your justice as the great deep.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
For with you is the well of life:
and in your light shall we see light.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
The Collect of the Day:
Almighty Father,
whose Son was revealed in majesty
before he suffered death upon the cross:
Give us grace to perceive his glory,
that we may be strengthened to suffer with him
and be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Collect of the Word:
Holy God,
you have revealed the glory of your love in Jesus Christ,
and have given us a share in your Spirit.
May we who listen to Christ
follow faithfully,
and, in the dark places where you send us,
reveal the light of your gospel.
Introduction to the Peace:
Christ will transfigure our human body
and give it a form like that of his own glorious body.
We are the Body of Christ. We share his peace.
(cf Philippians 3: 21, 1 Corinthians 11: 27, Romans 5: 1)
Preface:
Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
whose divine glory shone forth upon the holy mountain
before chosen witnesses of his majesty;
when your own voice from heaven
proclaimed him your beloved Son:
Post Communion Prayer:
Holy God
we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
May we who are partakers at his table
reflect his life in word and deed,
that all the world may know
his power to change and save.
This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Blessing:
The God of all grace,
who called you to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus,
establish, strengthen and settle you in the faith:
Suggested Hymns:
II Kings 2: 1-12:
643, Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
297, Come, thou Holy Spirit, come
298, Filled with the Spirit’s power, with one accord
647, Guide me, O thou great Jehovah
386, Spirit of God, unseen as the wind
310, Spirit of the living God
Psalm 50: 1-6:
501, Christ is the world’s true light
381, God has spoken – by his prophets
97, Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
362, O God, beyond all praising
II Corinthians 4: 3-6:
684, All praise to thee, for thou, O King divine
11, Can we by searching find our God
52, Christ, whose glory fills the skies
613, Eternal light shine in my heart
481, God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year
324, God, whose almighty word
6, Immortal, invisible, God only wise
482, Jesus bids us shine with a pure clear light
484, Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim
195, Lord, the light of your love is shining
228, Meekness and majesty
486, People of God, arise
341, Spirit divine, attend our prayers
490, The Spirit lives to set us free
491, We have a gospel to proclaim
493, Ye that know the Lord is gracious
Mark 9: 2-9:
325, Be still, for the presence of the Lord, the Holy One is here
643, Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
501, Christ is the world’s true light
205, Christ upon the mountain peak
52, Christ, whose glory fills the skies
331, God reveals his presence
209, Here in this holy time and place
101, Jesus, the very thought of thee
195, Lord, the light of your love is shining
102, Name of all majesty
60, O Jesus, Lord of heavenly race
449, Thee we adore, O hidden Saviour, thee
112, There is a Redeemer
374, When all thy mercies, O my God
An additional note on Saint Valentine’s Day:
For many people, especially young couples, they are more likely to think of 14 February as Saint Valentine’s Day instead of the Sunday before Lent.
Thousands of locks will be secured to bridges and fences across Europe, Juliet’s supposed balcony in Verona will be visited by countless tourists and the Carmelite Church in Whitefriar Street, Dublin, will be full for special masses marking Saint Valentine’s Day, when the martyr’s reliquary is taken from a special shrine in a side chapel and placed before the High Altar.
Saint Valentine is a widely believed to have been a third century Roman martyr. He is commemorated on 14 February and since the High Middle Ages he has been associated with young love.
Yet, despite his popularity, we know nothing reliable about Saint Valentine apart from his name and the tradition that he died a martyr’s death on 14 February on the Via Flaminia, north of Rome. Many of the stories about his life are mythical and unreliable.
Popular legend says Valentine was a Roman priest who was martyred during the reign of Claudius II, Claudius Gothicus. He was arrested and imprisoned when he was caught marrying Christian couples and helping persecuted Christians.
It is said Claudius took a liking to this prisoner. But when Valentinus tried to convert the Emperor, he was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and stones; when that failed to kill him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate.
Many of the legends about Saint Valentine can be traced only to 14th century England and the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle, when 14 February was already linked with romantic love.
Because of the myths and legends, Saint Valentine was dropped from the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints in 1969. Nevertheless, the ‘Martyr Valentinus who died on 14 February on the Via Flaminia close to the Milvian Bridge in Rome’ is still on the list of officially recognised saints.
The day is alsocelebrated as Saint Valentine’s Day with a commemoration in Common Worship in the Church of England and in other churches in the Anglican Communion.
The relics of Saint Valentine were given by Pope Gregory XVI as a gift to Father John Spratt, an Irish Carmelite Prior, after he preached a popular sermon in the Jesuit church in Rome, the Gesu, in 1836. Since then, they have been kept in a shrine in the Carmelite Church in Whitefriar Street, Dublin.
Although the story of Saint Valentine is inextricably linked with romantic young love, it is good to be reminded of love as we prepare for Lent, and that our Lenten pilgrimage is a journey towards fully accepting the love of God offered to us through Christ on Good Friday and Easter Day.
Liturgical resources:
These prayers, included in suggested intercessions in the Book of Common Prayer for Wednesdays, may be helpful in writing prayers on the theme of love:
Loving Father, we give you thanks
for the obedience of Christ fulfilled in the cross,
his bearing of the sin of the world,
his mercy for the world which never fails …
for the joy of loving and being loved,
for friendship,
the lives to which our own are bound,
the gift of peace with you and one another …
for the communities in whose life we share
and all relationships in which reconciliation may be known …
These collects may also be used as additional collects after the Collect of the Day:
The Collect (Trinity II):
Lord, you have taught us
that all our doings without love are nothing worth:
Send your Holy Spirit
and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake.
(Book of Common Prayer, p 141).
The Collect (Trinity VI):
Merciful God,
you have prepared for those who love you
such good things as pass our understanding:
Pour into our hearts such love toward you
that we, loving you above all things,
may obtain your promises,
which exceed all that we can desire;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Concluding Prayer:
Help us to share in Christ’s ministry
of love and service to one another;
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord,
who in the unity of the Holy Spirit
is one with you for ever. Amen.
(Book of Common Prayer, p 141).
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.
The hymn suggestions are provided in Sing to the Word (2000), edited by Bishop Edward Darling. The hymn numbers refer to the Church of Ireland’s Church Hymnal (5th edition, Oxford: OUP, 2000).
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