ENGAGED couples from across Ireland received a special blessing this week in honour of St Valentine’s Day.
The special event was held at the shrine of Saint Valentine, which is located in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Dublin’s Whitefriar Street.
Among those in attendance were Sinéad O’Connor from Kildare and her fiancé Darren Larkin from Wicklow and Siobhan O’Shaughnessy from Cork and fiancé Kieran Davey from Dublin.
The annual blessing of engaged couples, which included their rings being blessed, was presided over by Bishop Denis Nulty.
Bishop Nulty welcomed the couples to the church on Monday, February 12, rather than today, as Valentine’s Day clashes with Ash Wednesday this year.
Bishop Denis Nulty with Sinead O'Connor and Darren Larkin, and Siobhan O'Shaughnessy and Kieran Davey, at the blessing of engaged couples at the shrine of the holy relics of Saint Valentine at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Whitefriar Street“I welcome all of you to the Shrine of Saint Valentine here in Whitefriar Street Church, in the heart of Dublin,” he said.
“Why are we here on Monday, isn’t Saint Valentine’s Day on Wednesday, you might ask?
“Well Wednesday also happens to be Ash Wednesday,” he explained, before adding: “We have had that clash of dates before, most recently in 2018, and before that in 1945.
“So the choice on Wednesday is ‘romance’ or ‘penance’!
“We are anticipating Wednesday by our gathering this day.”
Siobhan O'Shaughnessy from Cork and Kieran Davey from Dublin pictured at the relic of St ValentineIn 1945, when Ash Wednesday and Saint Valentine’s Day last previously clashed, the relics of Saint Valentine were not yet enshrined in Dublin, Bishop Nulty explained.
“They were brought to this location during a church renovation in the 1950’s,” he said.
“They had come much earlier when the Carmelite Father John Spratt, brought the relics here, gifted to him by Pope Gregory XVI while on a visit to Rome in 1835.”
He added: “Over the years, thousands of couples like Sinéad and Darren and Siobhan and Kieran have come to have their engagement rings blessed, to light a candle, to pray for an intention.”
Sinead O'Connor and Darren Larkin pictured following their blessingBishop McNulty went on to explain the association of St Valentine with love to those gathered.
“Valentine was martyred in Rome in 269, after secretly marrying two Christians,” he said.
“It was a time when weddings were prohibited by the Emperor.
“Valentine defied the emperor’s orders and secretly married couples to spare the husbands being conscripted to serve in war.”
Complete with an altar and life-size statue of St Valentine, the shrine contains an alarmed casket enclosing a number of St Valentine’s bones and a vial of his blood.
An inscription on the casket, or reliquary, reads: ‘This shrine contains the sacred body of Saint Valentinus the Martyr, together with a small vessel tinged with his blood.’
