How I created my own catechism after reading ‘The Art of Loving’

The first entry in the second edition of Butler’s Lives of the Saints for February 14 reads: ST VALENTINE, Martyr (c. A.D. 269).

On Ancestry.com, you can trace your roses and heart-shaped chocolates all the way back to him.

Not exactly. St. Valentine wouldn’t know Valentine’s Day from a baseball game.

For a long time, it was believed there were two Valentines: a priest buried on the Via Flaminia (the road from Rome to Rimini) and a bishop from Terni, also a martyr.

But scholars who’ve looked into this say there was only one Valentine, that the people of Terni appropriated Rome’s version out of small-town chauvinism.

It was also believed the “romance” of Valentine’s Day came from the ancient Roman observance of Lupercalia, a mid-February festival of purification when citizens performed rites to rid themselves of impurities that threatened their future.

Young men ran about the city in a loin cloth — the historian Plutarch says — flailing away with strips of leather cut from the hides of goats sacrificed at the Lupercal altar.

The scourging was said to drive out spirits that brought disease and sterility. Women welcomed the straps across their backs believing the flagellation would bring babies.

But the running naked was halted in 495 when Pope Gelasius transformed the pagan rite by making St. Valentine the new protagonist. People could celebrate the 14th with clothes on.

There was no sense then that St. Valentine was a Cupid whose golden arrow stirred desire in witless “victims.”

That connection came in the 14th Century when England’s great poet Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400), the Father of English Literature, included love-driven birds in a poem.

Lines 309-310 of his “Parlement of Foules” say: “For this was on seynt Volantynys day/ Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.”

In modern English that’s: “For this was on St. Valentine’s Day/ When every bird cometh there to choose his mate.”

Thus Valentine’s Day became the celebration of coupling as folks set their sights on the object of their desire.

“At the time of Chaucer’s death in 1400,” as scholar Jack Oruch points out in, “St. Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February,” “the transformation of Valentine into an auxiliary or parallel to Cupid as sponsor of lovers was well under way.”

Two of Chaucer’s contemporaries also wrote Valentine poems and, right after his death, poet Jean de Garencière’s shared his Hallmarkian thought: “Au jour d’uy qu’homme doit dame choisir Je vous choisy … ”

This loosely means, “Since Valentine’s Day is a time to choose a love, won’t you be my Valentine?”

As we know, in the United States today, the “choisy” stuff is a $20 billion business as corporations run line after line on consumers that love can be shown through purchase.

In her article “How Your Small Business Can Find Customer Love This Valentine’s Day” on the Internet’s Constant Contact, Ashley Perssico tells small-business decision-makers to “aim your arrow at male shoppers.”

Pourquoi? In 2015, men spent an average of $191 on their petite choisy and women countered with $97.

And “while jewelry, going out, and flowers” accounted for most of the love-day dollars, 20 percent of folks, Perssico says, planned to get something for their pet. Spot and Tabby are now in the loop.

Thus, as St. Valentine has nothing to do with Valentine’s Day, so neither does love except in a schmaltzy maltzy way. St. Valentine’s Day, just like Christmas, Halloween, and Mother’s Day, is a time for people to buy into the corporate sales pitch that feelings of love and community are enhanced when packaged products are bought for others.

I wonder what would happen if, instead of a Victoria’s Secret garter belt and heart-shaped box of chocolates, some poor soul offered his lover on the 14th a copy of Erich Fromm’s classic “The Art of Loving.” How would that play in Peoria?

Fromm says of course “giving” is a part of love but so are traits like care, responsibility, and respect. I like the last chapter, “The Practice of Love,” when Fromm hints at a few mandates.

He says the person who wishes to be a true lover — in addition to needing patience and discipline — must achieve a level of concentration that comes only from being “alone with oneself,” which entails disconnecting oneself from the spin of religion, the market, and state.

The logic is: Until a person finds out who he really is, he has no self to share with, or give to, another. The good news is that those who find their true selves are moved to listen to others, to take what they say seriously. Their philosophy is needs-based.

Fromm also says lovers who practice the art of love don’t waste time in empty chatter. They avoid “possible, trivial conversation, that is, conversation which is not genuine.” Their shared life-plan allows them to relate on a deeper level.

Fromm ends by offering some old-fashioned advice: Stay away from “bad company.” You want to be a good lover? Stay away from those (persons and things) who turn you away from yourself.

In 2019, bad company translates to corporations that bombard the populace, through advertising and social media, with an image of personhood that says: When you purchase packaged goods and services — and pawn them off on others — you’re showing fidelity and commitment.

A subtle but insidious part of the pitch is that it includes a roster of what a person’s needs are, followed by details about how and where need-satisfaction can be purchased. Of course there’s always a freedom discount on the Fourth of July!

Would anyone dare give a copy of “The Art of Loving” to his or her love-bird on the 14th with an offer to read along and then discuss what was read? Would such a gift be greeted with guffaws?

The development of the Valentinian concentration mentioned above requires deep doses of solitude to discern what one really needs and then to measure those needs against the formulae the corporate world sells as love-affirming.

I also know that, when a person feels at home in his own skin, he (or she) is more inclined to accept diversity in others — and without resentment. That’s when Cupid’s shaft has altered the political economy of one’s being.

When I first read “The Art of Loving,” I created a catechism of my own. I made up all the questions about love I could think of and then added the answers as they arose. That wasn’t the case in grammar school when they told me what to say.

The catechism was a Valentine’s gift to me equal to a hundred dozen roses and the largest box of heart-filled chocolates ever seen, enough for any St. Valentine to die for.