St David Childwall

St David’s is an active parish church that seeks to offer a warm, welcoming, and safe environment, where all are valued and nurtured in faith and life.

  • Welcome
    • History
  • News and Articles
    • Latest News
    • Messenger
    • Cafe
  • Calendar
  • Resources
    • Messenger
    • Messy Rocket Church
  • Contact
    • Find Us

Love

1st February 2019 by admin

Amid the hustle and bustle of Christmas, the tinsel, the sparkle and the mince pies, our vicar, Peter, asked me to write a piece for this month’s Messenger. Of course I said yes and promised myself I would work on it just into the New Year hence me sitting on a damp and dark January evening struggling to find an interesting enough topic to write about.

One huge word springs to mind… BREXIT but to me that word conjures up indecision, division and complete disregard for togetherness. I thought about all the reasons we have to celebrate this year, all the special days we will share as a community in our church or as families in our own homes.

Being a fairly newly married man the next important day on my calendar is Valentine’s Day. The feast day of St Valentine is a celebration of love and affection. St Valentine was born in the third century AD and he was executed on 14 February by Emperor Claudius II in Rome.

In pagan times February was the time of year for fertility rituals and the Roman festival of spring and pairing off of women to men. According to legend, St Valentine sent to his jailer’s daughter who he had befriended, and by some accounts healed from blindness, a letter signed “from your Valentine”.

In Roman times only single men would be called to war so St Valentine, who was a priest, secretly married couples to spare the husbands from war. It is for this reason that his feast day is associated with love. However, many years later it was the poet Chaucer who linked St Valentine to romantic love.

Since the 1500’s formal messages of love have been sent and by the late 1700’s commercially printed cards have been used. In the Philippines the 14th of February is the most common wedding anniversary with mass weddings of hundreds of couples not uncommon on that date. The Welsh have their own version of St Valentine called St Dwynwen, and her feast day is celebrated on 25th January.

Whilst St Valentine’s day is a good opportunity to remind those close to us of how much we care, we need to remember that as Christians and followers of Jesus that every day is an opportunity to show love to all whose lives we touch. We live in a society very quick to marginalise and discriminate. We have families within our community dependent on foodbanks.

In the news this week we have heard of schools opening during Christmas holidays to ensure that children were fed – this is love. We heard of the Foodbank in Oldham being ransacked – people from across the UK and other parts of the world have rallied to re-fill the shelves making sure families don’t go without – this is love.

God gave his only son into this world, sacrificing him so that we would be free – this is love. In the gospel of John 4:19 we are told “We love because He first loved us”. May the love of our Lord always be with us and as we draw close to February, the month associated with love, may our hearts be filled with the desire to share God’s love so freely given to us all.

Every blessing, Adrian and family.

(This article by Adrian was originally published as part of St David’s Messenger in February 2019)

Filed Under: Messenger

Recent Messenger Article

Covid Update

Update: Tuesday 5 January 2021  Suspension of Public Worship Services Unfortunately, because of the … [Read More...]

Messenger Archive

  • New Beginnings
  • The Messenger – January 2020
  • Remembrance
  • Time for Reflection
  • The simple things
  • Do you know who I am?

Email newsletter

Sign up to receive updates by email updates. Hear what's new and what's happening at St David's Childwall:

We take your security very seriously. Your name and email address will not be shared with anyone.

Bible verse of the day

Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
1 John 5:5

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
Follow @stdavids

Location

Contact Us

St David’s Church
Rocky Lane
Childwall
Liverpool
L16 1JA

0151 722 4549

vestry@StDavidChildwall.org.uk

Vestry Hour

Bookings for Weddings and Baptisms will be taken between 12pm – 1pm each Sunday after the main morning service at 10:30am; you are very welcome to come along to both.

Safeguarding

St David’s Church Childwall takes its duty and obligation to protect all extremely seriously. We have adopted the national Church of England’s robust procedures and guidelines. You can find out more about the national policies and procedures at www.churchofengland.org/safeguarding. If you have any safeguarding concerns or issues on a safeguarding matter then you can find useful contact information at www.liverpool.anglican.org/safeguarding

  • Welcome
  • News and Articles
  • Calendar
  • Resources
  • Contact

Copyright © 2021 St David Childwall • All rights reserved. • Privacy Policy