Roses Are Red, Justice Is Due: Saint Valentine, What Should We Do?
Long before Valentine’s Day became about roses and romance, it was about resistance. Before it was about “finding the one,” it was about standing up for love when doing so came at a real cost. Saint Valentine, the figure behind the holiday, didn’t become a saint because he had great dating advice. He became a martyr because he believed the love of Jesus should never bow to injustice.
Who Was Saint Valentine, Really?
Here’s where things get a little messy—in a very early-Church way.
Historically, there isn’t just one Saint Valentine. Ancient Christian sources suggest there were multiple martyrs named Valentine living in the Roman Empire during the third century. The most famous is likely Valentine of Rome, a priest (or possibly a bishop) who was executed around AD 269 under Emperor Claudius II.
According to early Christian tradition, Valentine was imprisoned and killed for his faith. Later legends add layers to his story: that he secretly performed Christian weddings, that he helped persecuted believers, and that he showed compassion to the sick and imprisoned. One popular story even claims he healed a jailer’s blind daughter and signed a farewell note to her “from your Valentine.”
What’s important isn’t which details are historically airtight and which are symbolic. What matters is that the Church remembered Saint Valentine’s faith was not a private spiritual hobby. It was public resistance.
The World Valentine Lived In
To understand why Valentine’s actions mattered, we need to understand his context.
The Roman Empire wasn’t neutral territory for Christians. Declaring “Jesus is Lord” directly challenged the claim that Caesar was the ultimate authority. Roman justice prioritised order, obedience, and usefulness to the state. Laws existed to preserve stability, not to safeguard human dignity. Those without status—slaves, women and the poor—were protected only insofar as they were useful.
Marriage, too, was political. Some traditions suggest Emperor Claudius II discouraged or banned marriages for young men, believing single soldiers fought better. Whether this specific law existed or not, the broader truth remains: the state claimed authority over love and loyalty. Justice wasn’t just about courts and laws. It was about who had power, who got protected, and whose humanity was recognised.
In that context, performing Christian marriages wasn’t just romantic—it was radical. It said Love is sacred, not strategic, commitment matters more than convenience and God, not the empire, defines human worth.
Valentine’s faith pushed him to act in ways that disrupted injustice, even when silence would have been safer.
From Martyr to Marketing
Fast forward a few centuries.
During the Middle Ages, Saint Valentine became associated with romantic love. Poets leaned into the symbolism, and over time, Valentine’s feast day blended with ideas of courtly love.
Eventually, consumerism took the mic.
What started as a day remembering sacrificial love became a day selling it. Love turned into a product. Romance became performative. Justice? Completely missing from the conversation.
Today, Valentine’s Day often reinforces pressure. Be desirable, chosen, coupled. Be happy, or at least look like it online. It’s very far from the story of a saint who lost his life because love refused to cooperate with injustice.
A Just Valentine’s Day
When we think about justice, we think about protests, courtrooms, and campaigns. But justice, in the Christian sense, is always rooted in love.
Biblical justice is about restoration. It’s about the right relationships. It’s about defending the dignity of people made in God’s image. That kind of justice is costly. It doesn’t trend well. It doesn’t fit into a heart-shaped box. But it changes lives.
And that’s where Valentine’s story meets ours.
Challenges Saint Valentine leaves us with
Our culture treats love as a feeling you fall into and out of. Valentine reminds us that love is something you choose, especially when it’s inconvenient. Yet Saint Valentine didn’t invent radical love. He followed it.
The love of Jesus shows up for people who are overlooked, in systems that are broken and when silence would be easier. Valentine’s love cost him his freedom—and eventually his life. While most of us won’t face martyrdom, following Jesus will still cost us something: comfort, approval, convenience, or control. But that’s the kind of love that leaves a legacy.
Valentine lived the way he did because he followed a Messiah who showed us that love and justice are inseparable.
Jesus shows us that love is not soft or passive. It flips tables. It restores dignity. It walks toward suffering instead of away from it. Jesus didn’t preach love from a safe distance. He touched the untouchable, challenged unjust power, defended the vulnerable, and laid down His life for a world that didn’t deserve it.
So this Valentine’s Day, maybe the invitation isn’t to buy more or post more or compare more. Maybe it’s to love deeper like our Lord. To ask where injustice is being normalised? Who is being ignored? How can my love become active, not abstract?
So this Valentine’s Day, let your love look like Jesus’ because resurrection love still has the power to make all things new.
