St. Valentine’s Day Family Style

Necessity is truly the mother of invention!

Here is my story!

In an attempt to spice things up a bit in our family homeschooling I was planning on doing all things St. Valentine!

So off to the library I went.

Only to find that practically EVERYTHING I found was about the cute (sometimes creepy looking) cupids with love arrows, hearts, flowers, chocolate BUT nothing about the real saint!

Just to paint the picture for you, here is a small sampling of titles you will find if you do a library or book search:

Hugs and kisses for the Grouchy Ladybug by famed author Eric Carle, Groggle Monster’s Valentine (yes, that is a real book recommended on a popular teacher website), Valentine’s Day Jokes for KidsThe Secret Life of Squirrels – a Love Story, Little Ant’s Valentine, do I need to go on???

Needless to say I was dismayed and horrified at the same time!!

Who is the saint that causes us to be wild about hearts ♥, the color red and send friends and family messages of love every February 14?

The secular world is CLUELESS.

So I made it my mission to learn the real story behind this Catholic feast day.

Step 1:

I began our little evangelization journey/project towards reclaiming the REAL St. Valentine from the jaws of the secular world by first learning several prayers attributed to the saint, to ask him to intercede for our family and friends.

Image of St. Valentine

Novena to St. Valentine

O holy Martyr, St. Valentine, pray 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.

Antiphon: This Saint fought, even unto death, for the law of his God, and feared not the words of the wicked; for he was set upon a firm rock.

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.

(Here mention your petitions)

Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory be to the Father

Step 2:

Next I went back to the library and scoured the shelves and on-line catalog, I took out a bunch of books that looked promising  and eventually found a few  good books to use for our nightly read aloud time. There are not many I would recommend but these definitely passed the mustard! Each one added different facts and historic details.

valentine homeschool

Saint Valentine by Robert Sabuda

valentine homeschool

Saint Valentine by Ann Tompert

Hearts, Cupids and Red Roses by Edna Barth

valentine and homeschool

The Story of Valentine’s Day by Clyde Robert Bulla

The next thing you knew I was immersing myself in the transition from the pagan rituals and the symbolism of the symbols and colors surrounding this feast day! Naturally that then brought me to the history of the feast day and story of how a  Pope helped to Christianize this day, his name is Pope Gelasius. So cool right?

In true form it was the Catholic Church elevating a pagan feast day and its symbols by celebrating the feast day of an early martyr of the Church, St. Valentine. 

Thus became our family tradition, to make cards that included sacred and beautiful images of the real St. Valentinethe Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary!  We use Scripture verses that speak of REAL love.  

Step 4:

I designed it to counts as school work,  by adding notebooking sheets for our narrations,  mini-book templates of various shapes and  designs to have the kids write about all they learned from the history I had written for them on several reference sheets. We also added the mini-books to lapbooks too!

Handwriting practice lessons for that day included Scripture verses I had collected with God’s unending love for His children! Coloring sheets ( of St. Valentine, were super handy for my little ones during nightly rosary or quiet time.

And I also had holy cards designed so we could print/color and share. This collection has something for everyone in the family!

You too can invite a family you know from your homeschool community or from your parish and make beautiful St. Valentine Cards or postcards to exchange or bring to neighbors!

Immerse yourselves in all thing St. Valentine! My talented daughters helped me put all of this together in a 50 page printable packet. It is well loved by family and friends who use it year after year, as their family tradition and more importantly as an evangelization tool to tell the REAL story of St. Valentine.

For that we are grateful!

Leave a comment on your family’s journey towards evangelizing the culture by reclaiming the saints!

SHARE your St. Valentine’s too!

 

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1 Comment

  1. Nichole

    I love your determination to find truth to this celebration and thank you for sharing!
    My daughter made her own Valentine and gave it to a Dunkin Donuts employee at the drive thru. The worker loved it and hung it up for all the other workers to enjoy!

    Reply

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