Each year, millions of people fear VD (Valentine's Day), the holiday darling of the flower, chocolate, greeting card, and jewelry industries.

For weeks prior to the ominous day, television advertisers flaunt commercials of gorgeous male and female actors expressing eternal love to each other, as they swoon over Tiffany rings that cost more than most people's automobiles.

Print advertisers, blissfully ignorant of the recession and housing crash, tout tropical island getaways for VD. They accompany their ads with sexy sunset shots of bikini-clad male and female actors (yet again!) holding hands and rushing into the pounding surf, as they gaze lovingly into each others' eyes -- at least until the photo shoot is over.

The message from Madison Avenue is clear: on February 14th, we all should be beautiful, rich, and madly in love.

And for the emotionally susceptible, this message can be crippling.

But, ladies and gentlemen, it may be time to consider changing the import of Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day was named in honor of one of three martyred Christian saints named Valentine, all of whom, scholars speculate, either were celibate bishops or priests. Said Pope Gelasius of one of the vaguely-remembered Valentines (rather cryptically), "[his] acts are known only to God."

Religious depictions of the Valentine saints are unromantic: a bishop standing beside a rooster; a bishop being decapitated; a priest bearing a sword. And we are told that the Valentines are the patron saints of plague sufferers, bee keepers, and those who faint.

The eponymous saint's day was first officially commemorated by Pope Gelasius circa 498 a.d. Many scholars believe Gelasius and Church officials chose this date to distract people from celebrating the February-based pagan feast of Lupercalia, when Roman boys would take to the streets, playfully slapping women and crops with goat hides. The women, it is reported, enjoyed this, for they had been told that goat hide slaps increased their fertility.

In the Middle Ages, Valentine's Day gained a further link to romance when early ornithologists in England and France designated it the official commencement of birds' mating season.

Over the ensuing centuries, men and women began exchanging friendly handwritten cards and notes on this day. As printing techniques developed, they turned to mass-produced commercial creations. Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, 25% of all cards purchased are Valentine Day cards.

As VD approaches, with its concomitant conformity and commercialism, we need not fall prey to checkbook martyrdom... Nor need we succumb to Madison Avenue's subtle whispers that if we are not in the heady blush of infatuation (with a rich model), we are unworthy in some way.

Love (which is remarkably absent from centuries of Valentine history) can be expressed in myriad ways: a smile, an unexpected favor, a compliment, a sacrifice.

And the highest, most spiritual form of love is expressed anonymously, without any wish for reciprocity.

On Valentine's Day, just as on any other day this year, people battle illnesses alone in hospital wards, poor families cannot pay rent, broken soldiers return home from Iraq, children mourn the sudden loss of a parent, and countless others suffer silently in emotional and physical pain.

Wouldn't this be a good day to anonymously reach out to just one with love -- be it expressed through flowers, a financial donation, a kind act...

Centuries ago, someone named Valentine did something selfless, of great magnitude.

Today we know only his name.

But it has survived beyond a millennium.

A Pope said of him, "[his] acts are known only to God."