This Thursday, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. This feast recalls the first visit of Jesus to the Temple. According to the Mosaic Law, a woman was made ritually unclean by childbirth and was required to absent herself from public worship for forty days. At the end of that time, she would make a sacrificial offering in the Temple as a sign of her purification. Mary was obedient to the Law, and her visit to the Temple is what we commemorate on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord (formerly called the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin).
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The Presentation in the Temple. 13th century apse mosaic
from Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome. |
When Mary and Joseph come to the Temple, they encounter two people, Simeon and Anna, who recognize in the child Jesus the long-awaited Messiah. Simeon hails him as "a light for revelation to the Gentiles, / and glory for your people Israel" (see Luke 2:22-40): Christ is the light, not only of the chosen people, but of the whole world, Jews and Gentiles alike. The candles which (beginning as early as the seventh century) have been blessed and carried on this day are a sign of Christ's light. In the Prayer of Blessing, we pray that the light of Christ may shine in our hearts, and guide us to God who is the source of light:
O God, true light, who create light eternal,
spreading it far and wide,
pour, we pray, into the hearts of the faithful
the brilliance of perpetual light,
so that all who are brightened in your holy temple
by the light of these candles
may happily reach the light of your glory.
In the secular world, February 2 is also a day about light. For centuries, all over Europe, February 2 was considered to be a bellwether of the summer. If the skies were cloudy and the weather bad, a good summer and a bounteous harvest lay in store. But if the sun shone on February 2, there were sure to be forty more days of winter. That's why it's bad news if the groundhog sees his shadow on "Groundhog Day"!
