Words from Bede Circuit
Dear Friends,
My husband Peter was an eternal optimist and always saw the best in everyone and everything. He was also a Yorkshire man therefore, he was also always honest and would say things as he saw them, or as they were, albeit with a large dose of humour, a wry smile, and even a twinkle in his eye! He (and therefore we) did not “do Valentine’s Day”, his reason being that he did not need a saint’s day to remind him to tell people he loved them. I only ever received two Valentine’s Day cards from him, but he told me every day he loved me and bought me flowers every week with the weekly supermarket shop; after all, he paid the bill! When we started talking about getting married, he said he would propose when the time was right. I later discovered he spent an entire weekend trying to find the right moment and the perfect place until finally, in the middle of making bacon sandwiches after an evening service, he whisked me off in the car to the place we had first met – the local Methodist Church! Therefore, proposing on a Sunday evening 13th February as he had not wanted it to be on Valentine’s Day. It remains a special memory.
You may, or may not “do Valentine’s Day” but once again it is here, also marking the middle of February – where does the time go? You may be surprised to know there are different opinions about when and where St Valentine’s Day began. Emperor Claudius II had banned marriage because he thought married men made bad soldiers. It is thought that Valentine served as a priest and felt this was unfair, so he broke the rules and arranged marriages in secret. When Claudius found out, Valentine was thrown into jail and sentenced to death. He fell in love with the jailer's daughter and when he was taken to his execution on 14th February, he sent her a love letter signed "from your Valentine". Another line of thought is that Valentine's Day originated from a Roman festival called Lupercalia in the middle of February - officially the start of their springtime. As part of the celebrations, boys drew names of girls from a box. They would be boyfriend and girlfriend during the festival and sometimes even married later. Eventually, the church wanted to turn this festival into a Christian celebration and decided to use it to remember St Valentine too. Gradually, people used St Valentine’s name to express their feelings to those they loved.
Love is a strong emotion crossing many barriers, relationships, even oceans, and continents, between couples, families, or friends. It is perhaps within families and between lovers where it can be the strongest. If human love is so strong, how much more so between God and His children. We read in 1 Corinthians 13: 13, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love, But the greatest of these is love.”
At present, within our churches, we are engaged in discussions and decision-making arising from the “God in Love Unites Us” report agreed by the Methodist Conference last year. The report recognizes that, even though we love one another, we can hold opposing opinions on all manner of things and certainly on those that matter most to us. Let us all pray for each other and hold any contradictory convictions within the love of God who has created us all in His own image. Whether you choose to observe Valentine’s Day, or not, remember, “We love because God first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) and whether we always agree, or not, it is indeed our God of Love who, in Love unites us.
Circuit morning prayers continue on Wednesday mornings on Zoom at 10.00am:
Every blessing,
Rev Deborah Wainwright on behalf of the Bede Circuit Staff Team