St. Valentine Touches Hearts in Dublin and Beyond

The witness of God’s love is venerated at an Irish shrine and elsewhere.

Dublin is home to a shrine dedicated to St. Valentine.
Dublin is home to a shrine dedicated to St. Valentine. (photo: By blackfish - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons / and Unsplash)

The skull of St. Valentine is venerated in Rome.

But in my research about the saint of the day today, I discovered that other relics of the patron of engaged couples, love and marriage can be found in churches all over the world, including at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, overseen by Carmelites, in Dublin.

Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846) sent remains of St. Valentine to Our Lady of Mount Carmel in 1836, after an Irish Carmelite priest came to Rome the year before and impressed the locals with his preaching, according to the church website.

The relics returned to prominence with construction of the St. Valentine Shrine in the middle of last century.

Ever since, couples have come to pray in the Whitefriar Street Church for Valentine’s intercession, especially on his Feb. 14 feast, with special blessings of rings.

And the day before the beloved feast, engaged couples are blessed at the shrine — a sweet and lovely tradition indeed. St. Valentine, of course, was martyred for marrying couples in secret in defiance of Claudius the Cruel in Rome around A.D. 270.

Valentine also ministered to Christian soldiers of his day, amid persecution, and “to remind these men of their vows and God’s love, St. Valentine is said to have cut hearts from parchment,” a possible origin of hearts on St. Valentine's Day, according to The Valentine & Its Origins.

Learn more about the saint of the day here and here.

St. Valentine, pray for us!