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The Patron Saint of the Desperately Dateless

One good thing about the Catholic Church is that it is definitelty attuned to personal difficulties. The Church is really a caring parent. While the secular world may organize "desperately dateless" balls to match up or give singles a chance to find happiness, the Church assigns a heavenly patron to every problem.

And with the global singles population increasing, the Pope has become concerned that the Vatican has assigned Saint Raphael the Archangel as the Patron of the Dateless on Valentine's Day!

Here is what EWTN says about it. For starters St Valentine isn't the patron of the dateless. For starters one needs to have found love in order to ask for St Valentine's intercession. But the Church isn't even sure how many St Valentine's are there. We are only sure of one thing, all these Valentines were martyred and their heads lopped off. Now we wonder how that was related to love. The Church had long removed St Valentine from the liturgical commemoration.

Maybe if you find true love your head will be figuratively lopped off. But if that's the case, why do lovers give each other migraines? Geoffrey Chaucer is believed to be the one who made this Valentine's Day and lovers gimmick in his poem "The Parliament of Birds". I was searching for a copy at the UP Library but it has been loaned out. I'll try to find it in Fully Booked at the Fort; where I have observed that the dateless seem to converge at the love and relationships section! And I noticed that the Love section is next to the Religion section. I think the bookshop has had it logically planned. The Science section is opposite the Love and Religion sections!

St Valentine's day may have pagan roots but doesn't Christmas and Easter have them too? But Chaucer was just observant of nature. Valentine's Day is all about sex.

He wrote

"For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make":

In 21st English this is how it goes

"For this was on Saint Valentine's day, when every bird comes there to choose his mate"

That's why the dateless really have it extremely bad..

So the Church really understands the problem very well.

Saint Raphael was the residential college near where I stayed when I was student in Australia. The residents were all single girls!

Saint Raphael's intercession brings wonders. While Saint Jude may intercede for the hopeless, Saint Raph intercedes for the dateless.

And the Church understands that being dateless isn't being hopeless!

Happy Saint Valentine's Day to those who love, have loved and will love.
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