Purification, Presentation, Lighting the Candles
From the Diocesan Archivist:
This day in the Church’s Calendar has three names, which all refer to part of the same event.
In the past today was called the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was the tradition of the Jews that 40 days after the birth of a son, a mother would present herself and the child in the temple for the ritual cleansing along with a sacrifice of two turtle doves or two young pigeons. Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem.
There in the meeting with Simeon and Anna we see both the actual and symbolic relationship of the old and new covenant. The law and the prophets bear witness to Christ as the fulfilment of the hopes of Israel. Simeon’s proclamation of the Nunc Dimittis enlarges the vision of God’s work to encompass the Gentiles, this is the same theological point which is made in respect to the Magi. Anna epitomises the faithful worshipper, waiting in hope for the promises of God to be fulfilled. This gives us the more modern name, for this day, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple.
The Church has taken Simeon’s in the words of the Nunc Dimittis “a light to lighten the Gentiles” and interlinked it with Northern Hemisphere events. February 2 is half way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, the time when the dark is turning to light. In about 990AD, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ælfic’s sermon for Candlemas records the blessing of a taper brought by members of the congregation and once blessed the candles would leave with their owners in procession, to take their light “among God’s houses and to share it with others”. This gives us the third of the names for today— Candlemass.
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