Candlemas: The Presentation of Our Lord and the Purification of Our Lady
February 2, 2025
Almighty and ever living 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.
Malachi 3:1-4
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40
I am sure I have told you this before: I love Candlemas, and not because it is the day after my birthday. To say that this celebration is “rich” is putting it mildly. Here we are, forty days after Christmas, and we see Jesus’ family dutifully fulfilling the obligations of the Law. Together, Mary and Joseph have brought Jesus to the Temple to make their required sacrifice, and Mary has come to undergo the ceremony that will return her to a state of post-partum ritual purity. These are the bones of the story of the Gospel text for today.
It shows Jesus’ parents being faithful to the Law. It looks back, placing Jesus within the context of all that came before, including the words of the prophets like Malachi, who declared that the messianic one who will come to the Temple shall be
like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, till they present right offerings to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years
It is also an episode that looks forward. Jesus has come to the Temple and is recognised by Simeon and Anna as that messianic figure, the one who will extend the reach of the God of Israel to the Nations, to all the peoples of the world. Encapsulated here is the entirety of sacred history, past, present, and future, as Simeon also speaks of Jesus’ passion that is to come: “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.”
Given the significance of the story, it is not surprising that this celebration of Presentation - Purification is an old festival. Our favourite fourth-century Gallic pilgrim, Egeria, testifies to its celebration at Jerusalem by the 380s. The feast spread west and is found at Rome by the sixth century, perhaps promulgated to suppress the Roman seasonal festival of Lupercalia. Then it began to make its way north.
Now, in Northern Europe, this festival fell in the depths of winter. Darkness still predominates the day – remember that Britain, Northern France and Germany, and the Low Countries, are all on at least the same North parallel as Newfoundland (or even Hudson Bay). This is a moment in the year when people are waiting for the light and warmth and renewal that comes with Spring, and the old pagan festival of Imbolc – and the syncretic connection of Saint Brigid to the goddess Bride of the Old Religion – recognised this reality, as do our own civic ceremonies of Groundhog’s Day. So, in these places the feast – more and more associated with Mary, as devotion to her became more popular in the early middle ages – organically came to emphasise the point made in Simeon’s song that Jesus is the “light to lighten the Gentiles.” And in a world where sacramental acts of blessing every day objects and linking them to the very presence of God was a hugely important element of people’s religious experience, it seems inevitable that a candle ceremony would become a significant part of the celebration, although its earliest associations at Jerusalem are with Mary.(1) They blessed candles and made a procession in which those candles were carried aloft, out into the darkness of the winter night, showing that the light of Christ can not be consumed by that darkness. Afterward, people took their candles home, to remind them that this holy light was there with them, providing them with actual light in the darkness of winter.
This all makes a wonderful message to preach on a cold second day of February, like today when we started out at fifteen degrees, and even more so when we have the mass at night, as we do most years. In these days, and in our winter nights, Jesus gives us the light and warmth we need. He is the light of the world, a light to the nations, to the great diversity of the peoples of the whole world, to extend the grace and love of the God of Israel to all people. Our candles represent for us – as they cast actual heat and light – the light of Christ shining in the darkness of our winter, and are a tangible signs for us of the very real atonement with God that Christ offers each and every one of us who has been baptised into his death and resurrection. Amen....
But wait, there’s more. To this heady mix, today we have added a baptism. But, today is not one of the great baptismal festivals, you might be thinking. Indeed, the last one was just a couple of weeks ago when we celebrated Jesus’ baptism, and the next one is coming up is the Great Vigil of Easter in April . The demands of family life and other real-life considerations, however, mean that we administer baptisms on other days. Here we had an open Sunday, well ahead of Lent (our annual baptismal fast) that worked for all involved, and I decided to add it to everything we are already doing today.
But why not? Why not make Candlemas a baptismal festival? When you think about it, all the elements are here, perhaps more so than on other of the set days. Today, Colin and Veronique are bringing little Remi to the Church to present him to God, to make him a part of a larger family, the Body of Christ. They are not bringing a sacrifice – neither the small birds that were what Mary and Joseph could afford, not the lamb that was more usually offered(2) – but they are bringing themselves, their friends, and family and offering to God their commitment to raise Remi “in the Christian faith and life,” and to help him “grow into the full stature of Christ,” one who is both open to the Love he will receive and to be able to pour out that love back into the world.
They are fulfilling – if not the Law – their own baptismal commitments in bringing Remi here. They are making promises that look back to their own baptism and incorporation into the Body of Christ, and look forward as they are expanding Remi’s family as he, now, becomes a part of that Body of which we, too, are members. Remi was always a child of God, he has always belonged here, but now, that belonging is sealed with this sacramental action. Like the candles we have carried today that give forth the light of Christ (and the candle we will present Remi after he is baptised), this water of baptism connects him with Christ’s baptism, when Jesus was declared God’s beloved son. In Baptism, as we come to share in the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we also share in that particular Love of God, the love of the Father for his beloved Son, which puts us on a path along which we are called to be open to the Love we are offered, the love we are given – not always an easy task – and to be able to give it back to others, back into the world, even when it seems hard, even when it would otherwise be unexpected. This is what Jesus did on the Cross, and this is the “full stature of Christ” of which I spoke earlier, and that is encompassed in the promises Remi’s parents and godparents make today, and that – I hope – he will take on for himself when he is Confirmed.
Today, on a cold winter’s morning, we come to Church to see and receive the light and warmth of the light of Christ, a light that shines through the darkness of the season. Today we celebrate that time Jesus was presented in the Temple in fulfilment of the Law and proclaimed a light to the Gentiles and the glory of his people Israel. And, most appropriately, in just a few minutes, we will see a new Christian presented here, in this place, this temple, where he already belongs, to be received by God in Christ as his own, a part of his Body.
Andrew Charles Blume ✠
New York City
The Feast of Charles, King and Martyr, 30 January 2025
1. As the candle procession was not mentioned by Egeria, and she likely would have mentioned it, t is unlikely to have appeared before 384, when she left Jerusalem. Cyril of Scythopolis, in the early fifth century, reports that Ikelia introduced the candle procession at the Kathisma, the first church dedicated to Mary, and located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. In 542 Justinian introduced the feast and procession at Constantinople, and we find it emerged at Rome under Pope Sergius between 687 and 701. From there the tradition spread further north and west. See Rina Avner, “The Initial Tradition of the Theotokos at the Kathisma: Earliest Celebrations and the Calendar,” The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium: Texts and Images, ed. by Leslie Brubaker and Mary B. Cunningam, Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies (London: Routledge, 2011), 22-24, 29. Thanks to Warren Woodfin for the information and reference.
2. 2Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagnia Series, 3 (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1991), 54.
© 2025 Andrew Charles Blume