Category Archives: Candlemas

Feb 02 2018
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Candlemas, St. Blaise's Day

Light Every Lamp

Throughout Mexico tonight, the dinner table will, for many, include tamales and hot chocolate, while in many parts of Europe, crepes will be on the menu. And at sunset, we’ll light every lamp in the house. It’s Candlemas. We are emerging from the darkness of Yuletide as the seasonal round of the year shifts from winter toward spring.

Candlemas is the day of blessing of candles in the Church, forty days past Christmas, with great processions of candles lit and born aloft, a light for the world. It is known as well as Purification Day, which comes out of an old Jewish tradition: forty days after the birth of a son, mothers would go to the temple to be purified. You might think of it as renewal, fitting for this time of year, the approach to spring. Not without coincidence, it was just yesterday, as Imbolc began, that the earth goddess was renewed as well, as our planet is now halfway on its yearly journey between the solstice of midwinter and the equinox of spring. And so the story goes that Mary went to the temple to be purified, carrying her newborn son, and it was there that she met the elders Anna and Simeon. Simeon recognized the child immediately as the light of the world, and this is the basis for the blessing of candles on this day, and the day’s lovely name.

One of the most beautiful and elaborate Candlemas celebrations is in the city of Puno in Peru. The photo above is of the Candlemas celebration there two years ago. The celebration in Puno and many other places in Peru, Bolivia, and other parts of South America will continue on for the better part of two weeks.

Candlemas is perhaps the most well known weather marker of the year: Here in the US, Candlemas isn’t much on our radar, but we do know the day as Groundhog Day. If Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow as he crawls up out of his burrow, it’ll mean 40 days more of winter; if he sees no shadow, then it will be an early spring. This weather lore comes out of much older weather marking traditions related to the Second of February, but which all seem to offer the same wisdom––that a bright and sunny Candlemas Day means a longer winter, while a dark and cloudy one means welcome warmth will soon be on its way:

If the sun shines bright on Candlemas Day,
The half of the winter’s not yet away.

Tomorrow, the 3rd of February, brings St. Blaise’s Day. St. Blaise protects against maladies of the throat. On his feast day, priests will bless each member of their congregation by invoking a prayer to St. Blaise while holding two unlit candles in one hand about the neck of each person receiving the blessing… surely related to Candlemas, too. My mom and dad got married at St. Blaise Church in Brooklyn in 1949. It was my grandparents’ neighborhood parish, a small church. And so we have some fondness for St. Blaise. Ah, but that is tomorrow. Today, though, when we awake, we’ll see what that old groundhog says about winter this year. We shall see what we shall see, and it will be what it will be. The weather is beyond our control. But we can, at sunset, run about the house and light every lamp, for a few minutes at least, and illuminate our world.

 

Image: Candlemas at Puno, Peru by Pavel Špindler, 2016 [Creative Commons], via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Jan 29 2018
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Candlemas, Christmas, Yule

Approach to Candlemas

January is waning, and with it, so is Yuletide in its full breadth. Most of us have packed away the Christmas things long ago, but there is an old old tradition that keeps the season going until the First of February, which is Candlemas Eve. Here in our house we have subscribed to this tradition this year, mainly because our tree has been so lovely and fresh, still, even in this late hour of midwinter. Perhaps also because Haden the Convivio Shop Cat loves sleeping beneath its boughs, and we enjoy the serenity of watching her sleep there.

Candlemas traditionally marks the end of the Christmas season in the Church, and even in homes, it is on Candlemas Eve that all vestiges of the Yuletide celebration are to be removed, as we shift from one seasonal perspective (winter) to another: the first stirrings of spring.

If you can’t imagine living with plastic snowmen and sparkly ornaments so far into the new year, keep in mind that in earlier times (well into the 20th century), Christmas decorations consisted of things of the natural world: holly and ivy, balsam and mistletoe, rosemary and other greenery. And in times past the decorations went up on Christmas Eve, not earlier. So it was pretty easy to live with these festive things in your home through to the Eve of Candlemas, and they certainly brought as much joy to a home as any of our contemporary decorations do now. While the major festivities of Christmas ended with Epiphany, the spirit of the season remained and lingered and kept folks company for these forty wintry days. But it was considered bad luck to keep these things about the house any longer than Candlemas. Our old reliable 17th century Book of Days poet Robert Herrick describes the significance of the day in his poem “Ceremony Upon Candlemas Eve”:

Down with the rosemary, and so
Down with the bays and misletoe ;
Down with the holly, ivy, all,
Wherewith ye dress’d the Christmas Hall :
That so the superstitious find
No one least branch there left behind :
For look, how many leaves there be
Neglected, there (maids, trust to me)
So many goblins you shall see.

The shift in our celebration of Christmas will probably always perplex me. How we took a celebration that traditionally begins on the solstice and runs through Candlemas and made it into a fourth quarter corporate event that begins in stores in September and makes people weary of its presence by Christmas Day is, I think, a great disservice to us all. In our home we follow the old ways as closely as we can. We may seem out of step with the rest of the world, but the rest of the world is not necessarily where we want to be, anyway. Home is a refuge for us and for sacred ceremony, and we rather like it that way. And so with Candlemas we will say farewell to the tree and to the wreath of bay upon the door. We’ll pack up the ornaments, and the tree will be returned to nature, laid to rest in a quiet corner of the garden. Next winter, at the solstice, we’ll use that same tree, dried over the course of the year, to fuel our solstice fire. And with Candlemas, we’ll shift our view from one of winter to one where the renewal of spring is close at hand.

 

Image: “Le Jeune Chanteur” by Trophime Bigot, who is known also as the Candlelight Master. Oil on canvas, 1650 [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Feb 02 2016
2 Comments
Candlemas, Imbolc

Shine All Around Us by Day and by Night

Kerzenlicht

It’s the Second of February: Groundhog Day in the United States. It’s a day that every school kid knows, which is impressive for a traditional weather marker day, for there are scores of traditional weather marker days throughout the year… but this is the one that has endured. It all centers on one groundhog in a town in Pennsylvania, and it relates to the story of Imbolc that began yesterday, for there begins the underground stirrings of this old Earth, awakening from long dark winter. As the earth awakens, so does Punxsutawney Phil. Should he emerge from his underground burrow this morning to see his shadow, it will mean forty days more of winter. No shadow? An early spring. This relates to centuries-old weather lore for this day, like this:

If the sun shines bright on Candlemas Day,
The half of the winter’s not yet away.

Today, at Candlemas, churches will be blessing the candles they will use the year long. But at home there are traditions we can follow that are more akin to the central core of this time of year, with its focus on the coming of spring. Spring comes because the sun is returning––we have reached, in the Northern Hemisphere, the halfway point between the darkness of the winter solstice and the balance of the spring equinox. One of the easiest and most enjoyable customs for Candlemas is this: At sunset, we light every lamp in the house. And hey, I know we’re busy people… so if it’s well after sunset before your whole family is gathered in the house, then so be it, do it then. There is something fun and wacky and maybe even a little decadent about doing this, though, and so we run around the house turning on every light, lighting every candle, even if it’s just for a few minutes. And in this simple act, you’ve connected to a custom that goes back through the ages.

Dinner, if you want to continue following old customs, might be crepes, which is a European tradition. In Mexico, tamales and hot chocolate are customary. (Hot chocolate with dinner? That’s pretty decadent, too.) The point is, no matter what, to celebrate the fact that light is returning, for it is: once we pass that point of equinox in March, daylight will begin taking over night once again.

Candlemas begins as the day that Mary went to the temple for the rite of purification, which is a Jewish custom: forty days after the birth of a son, mothers would go to the temple to be purified. And so here we are, forty days past Christmas. Tonight is the night to take down the Christmas decorations, should you still have them up. And so we pack up what is left, save it for next midwinter, and we return the Christmas greenery to nature, returning the gifts we borrowed for the Yuletide season. Leaving things longer than tonight invites bad luck (and also puts us out of step with the seasonal round of the year).

But we rarely leave one holiday completely as we jump to the next; usually they are connected, like steps along a footbridge. Yesterday St. Brigid bridged us from winter to spring, and so today with Candlemas we find ourselves at the opposite side of a bridge that began with Christmas. Mary went to the temple carrying her infant son forty days after his birth and it was there at the temple that she met the elders Anna and Simeon. The elders, wise and all-seeing, recognized the child immediately as the light of the world. This is the story basis for Candlemas, for the blessing of candles this day, and the connexion between the story and the celestial events that bring us closer to spring. And so here is my favorite music for Candlemas: It’s an old hymn called “Jesus, the Light of the World,” recorded by one of my favorite ensembles, the Boston Camerata. It’s from their album An American Christmas. I think of it as more a Candlemas song than a Christmas song, and it’s a fine song to sing or hum as you light all those lamps in the house and a fine album to play as the last vestiges of Christmas are stored away for yet another year.

As for Punxsutawney Phil, this morning he did not see his shadow. Spring will come early, they say.

 

Image: “Alte Frau mit Knaben bei Kerzenlicht” (Old Woman with Boys by Candlelight), attributed to Johann Georg Trautmann. Oil on wood, 17th century. [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

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