Candlemas

For most people, Christmas is over on December 26th. However, in the Christian tradition, Christmas is a season that lasts twelve days, concluding with the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th. The full cycle of feasts related to Christmas lasts forty days, only ten days less than the season of Easter. The Christmas cycle concludes today with Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple. This day is traditionally the day candles are blessed for use in the church for the rest of the year, giving the day the name Candlemas, meaning the "candle Mass."

The feast commemorates Mary and Joseph's visit to the Temple in Jerusalem. The Law of Moses stated that each firstborn male was to be presented in the Temple as holy to the Lord. The Law also stated that ritual sacrifice must be made forty days after birth in order for the mother to be purified.

It is difficult to imagine that Mary would need to be purified from such a birth as the birth of the world’s Savior. What can we say of this birth except that it ennobles Mary and elevates her, "higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim," and makes her the queen of saints and Bearer of God? But come to the Temple she did, and with St. Joseph her spouse, presented the Messiah to those who waited for Him so passionately. The aged Simeon and Anna recieved Jesus in the Temple, and recognised Him as the Christ, the Messiah, who brings light to the world. When Simeon takes the infant Jesus into his arms from the hands of Mary, he says,

Lord, you now have set your servant free
to go in peace as you have promised;
For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior,
whom you have prepared for all the world to see:
A Light to enlighten the nations,
and the glory of your people Israel. (Luke 2: 29-32)

A hymn prescribed for the Vespers of this feast in the Orthodox Church says:

Today the gate of heaven swings open,
for the Word of the Father,
who has no beginning,
has had a beginning in time,
without any loss of his divinity:
offered by a Virgin Mother,
as a child of forty days,
to the Temple of the Law.

Today we commemorate the coming of light into the world in the form of the infant Messiah, Jesus. As the candle's flickering light pierces the darkness, Christ illuminates our lives. We follow that divine light and present ourselves in the temple, following a promise far more beautiful and complete than any other: the promise of new and everlasting life through Christ’s own life, and death, and resurrection.



The Collect of the Day

Almighty and everliving God, we humbly beseech thee that, as thy only‑begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented unto thee with pure and clean hearts by the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.