Candlemas

The familiar carol stops at 12, but today is actually the 40th day of Christmas and the definitive end of the Christmas season. Whereas Christmas comes at the mid-point of the winter’s darkness, with the year’s shortest day and its correspondingly longest night, Candlemas comes at the mid-point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, the transition (according to one ancient way of reckoning the seasons) from winter to spring. This is a very ancient religious feast, which incorporates several interrelated themes, reflected in the different names given to this day. All these different names illustrate how full of meaning this festival is, and how much it has to teach us.

What is officially currently called the Presentation of the Lord, was for several centuries called the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Gospel story [Luke 2:22-40] recalls how. when Jesus was 40 days old, Mary and Joseph journeyed to Jerusalem according to the law of Moses, that is to say, in obedience to God’s law, in order to observe two important religious obligations. The first was the obligation of a new mother to be purified 40 days after after childbirth. This reflected ancient beliefs about the sacredness of blood. Life was believed to reside in the blood, which was, therefore, something sacred and mysterious. Hence, any direct contact with blood required ritual purification. The second concerned the special status and religious responsibilities of a first-born son (because of God’s having spared Israel’s first-born at the time of the Exodus).

Whether officially titled the Presentation of the Lord or the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, however, the most common popular title for today’s celebration in the West has consistently been Candlemas Day, because of the Blessing of Candles and the Procession - originally in Rome an early pre-dawn procession and until the 1960s a penitential procession in purple vestments – with which today’s Mass begins.

The name Candlemas calls attention to the blessed candles, but more pointedly to their light – and to the One whom that light symbolizes. The Church’s official ceremonial says that “on this day Christ’s faithful people, with candles in their hands, go out to meet the Lord and to acclaim him with Simeon, who recognized Christ as ‘a light to reveal God to the nations.’ They should therefore be taught to walk as children of the light in their entire way of life, because they have a duty to show the light of Christ to all by acting in the works that they do as lighted lamps.”

A secular version of Candlemas is, of course, “Groundhog Day.” Not so long ago, everyone in the western world knew about Candlemas Day. Today, most seem to have forgotten. As I wrote yesterday, even in the vibrant Catholic counter-culture of my 1950s parochial school, Candlemas made no major impression. How much less can we expect it to do so now that the Church's liturgy and ordinary life have become almost completely disconnected?

Yet even people who have never heard of Candlemas can relate to the folklore connected with this day and connect it with the change of seasons. While the weather is still wintry, the days are noticeably getting longer.  Soon, day and night, light and dark will be equal. So this last of the winter light festivals invites us to look ahead to what these winter light festivals are meant to symbolize.

Today we recall with joy the Lord’s entry into his Temple: and suddenly there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek [cf. Malachy 3:1]. At the same time, we hear, in wise old Simeon’s words to Mary, the first reference to what lies ahead, the first reference to the cross. Behold, this child is destined … to be a sign that will be contradicted – and you yourself a sword will pierce – so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. So, even as we take a last loving look back at winter and Christmas, Candlemas looks ahead to spring and Lent, and reminds us that the point of Christmas is Easter. Simeon and Anna’s encounter with the infant Jesus in the Jerusalem Temple points us toward our own encounter with the Risen Christ here and now.

When Simeon and Anna experienced in the infant Jesus the human face of God, they spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem. They hastened to proclaim and share their good news. That remains our task today – to take the light of these candles out into our spiritually still so very dark world, and so to share with all the light reflected in our own lives from the brightness of the human face of God.