Lupercalia or Valentine's Day?

There seems to be some speculation on the origin's of Valentine's Day. I decided I would blog today about Valentine's Day and share where it first started. But, I'm a little confused. SO, I will share the facts with you and let you decide for yourselves :)

Of course, all the text to follow is just information I found online and other people's opinions.

One Version of the Story....
Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman God of Agriculture, (the date in February was originally chosen to welcome spring) and to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus commemorating young men's rite of passage.
A lottery was held where all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn and the city's bachelors would then each choose a name out of the urn and the girl would be the sexual partner of the young man for a year.

I Different Version of the Story......
In 498 A.D. Pope Gelasius of the Christian Church declared the celebration a pagan holiday, and decided to Christianize it. He did this by creating a "misinformation" celebration on the day before the festival of Lupercalia, February 14th, in the hopes of confusing the entire matter.

Instead of the names of young women, the urn would contain the names of Christian Saints and the young men and women were to emulate the ways of the saint they picked from the urn for a year.

And Yet Another side of the story......
Saint Valentine was a Roman who was killed for his faith on February 14, 269 A.D. He had refused to worship pagan gods, and some stories say he was a priest who would marry young couples in secret who shared the Christian faith and wanted a Christian wedding dedicating their marriage to God. In 496, his 'saint day' was established. He is associated with love because he fell in love with the daughter of his jailer, and would pass notes to her. His final note, before he was executed, read 'from your Valentine'.

In Italy, with its romantic and religious roots, St Valentine's Day became the traditional day to be engaged. Young Romans would spend this day gathered together in gardens to listen to romantic poetry and music.

As with many holidays, the celebration of St. Valentine's Day became a mixture of the new Christian rites as well as the older pagan rites of that same time of year.

My opinion......
No matter where "Valentine's Day" came from, today is about love. What is love? None other than Jesus. So share Jesus' love with everyone you meet today!