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.
—Robert Herrick, “Ceremony Upon Candlemas Eve”
Candlemas — both Eve and Day — is a wonderful feast. It has a bit of melancholy to it, because it is the end of the Christmas season, for all that melancholy moment comes to many of the uninformed on December 26. As Robert Herrick mentions in the opening poem, it was once considered imperative to remove every trace of Christmas decoration on the Eve. In another poem, “The Ceremonies Upon Candlemas Day,” he recounts:
Kindle the Christmas brand, and then
Till sunset let it burn;
Which quench’d, then lay it up again,
Till Christmas next return.
Part must be kept, wherewith to teend
The Christmas log next year;
And where ’tis safely kept, the fiend
Can do no mischief there.
But of course, there is much more to Candlemas than the end of Christmas, poignant though that be, every year. Candlemas Eve is of course the feast of St. Brigid, “the Mary of the Gael,” who is to this day venerated all over Ireland. Despite the attempt to recast her as a pagan goddess, many a small and makeshift shrine to her still reflects the traditional faith of the Irish people. The bonfires held in some places this evening should remind us of St. Brigid kindling a flame in Christ’s honour at her convent in Kildare. Never allowed to go out until the Kildare monastery was suppressed during the Protestant revolt, as with the surviving bonfires it symbolised Christ’s light shining in the uncomprehending darkness.
The day itself commemorates two separate but related events that occurred on this day: the Purification of Our Lady, and the Presentation of Our Lord. Both have served as a title for the feast, and are the two actions which led the Holy Family to the Temple in Jerusalem before fleeing into Egypt. Childbirth being seen as unclean, Jewish mothers had to be ritually purified after undergoing it; although Our Lady certainly had no intrinsic need to do so, she complied with the law, even as her Son would do (the Churching of Women is a Catholic reminder of this rite). The Presentation of the First Born was a ceremony commemorating the miracle wherein the first-born of the Egyptians were killed and those of the Hebrews spared. As Mary and Joseph’s first born, Jesus had to undergo this rite, being offered and redeemed by a gift. In the course of these two observances, the Holy Family encountered Simeon and Anna.
The Blessing of Candles goes back at least to the 7th century and gives its name to the feast. With his usual flair, Dom Guéranger explains the importance of this custom: “The mystery of to-day’s ceremony has frequently been explained by liturgists, dating from the 7th century. According to St. Ivo of Chartres, (his Sermon on the Purification) the wax — which is formed from the juice of flowers by the bee, (which has always been considered as the emblem of virginity,) — signifies the virginal flesh of the Divine Infant, who diminished not, either by his conception or his birth, the spotless purity of his Blessed Mother. The same holy Bishop would have us see, in the flame of our Candle, a symbol of Jesus, who came to enlighten our darkness. St. Anselm, (his Narrations on St Luke) Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking on the same mystery, bids us consider three things in the blest Candle: the Wax, the Wick, and the Flame. The Wax, he says, which is the production of the virginal bee, is the Flesh of our Lord; the Wick, which is within, is his Soul; the Flame, which burns on the top, is his Divinity.
“Formerly, the Faithful looked upon it as an honour to be permited to bring their wax tapers to the Church, on this Feast of the Purification, that they might be blessed together with those, which were to be borne in the procession by the Priests and sacred Ministers; and the same custom is still observed in some congregations. It would be well if Pastors were to encourage this practice, retaining it where it exists, or establishing it where it is not known. There has been such a systematic effort made to destroy, or, at least, to impoverish the exterior rites and practices of religion, that we find, throughout the world, thousands of Christians who have been insensibly made strangers to those admirable sentiments of faith, which the Church alone, in her Liturgy, can give to the body of the Faithful. Thus, we shall be telling many what they have never heard before, when we inform them, that the Church blesses the Candles to-day, not only to be carried in the Procession, which forms part of the ceremony, but, also, for the use of the Faithful, inasmuch as they draw, upon such as use them with respect, whether on sea or on land, (as the Church says in the Prayer,) special blessings from heaven. These blest Candles ought, also, to be lit near the bed of the dying Christian, as a symbol of the immortality merited for us by Christ, and of the protection of our Blessed Lady.” Indeed, these blessed candles traditionally were lit for protection during times of hurricane or earthquake in areas prone to such.
Nor are the customs the sole preserve of the Latin Rite. According to the Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh: “The custom of blessing candles on the Feast of the Presentation was introduced to fill the “needs of the people.” (I Prayer of the Blessing) Its introduction into our Rite was relatively recent, during the seventeenth century, but its roots reach venerable antiquity. As recorded in The Chronicle of St. Theophanes, Emperor Justinian I had issued an order in 541 A.D. that on the Feast of the Presentation, a candle-light procession be held throughout the city to implore Divine Protection against pestilence and the numerous earthquakes that plagued the city.
“And in answer to this holy gesture, God caused the pestilence and the earthquakes to subside. This gave rise to having similar processions on other occasions when the common welfare of the people was in danger.
“These solemn processions, which eventually developed into Litia services in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were later discontinued and limited only to the churches. The faithful , however, continued to use the candles as the means of Divine protection. This prompted the blessing of candles on the Feast of the Presentation which then were distributed to the faithful.
“In homes, the blessed candles are lighted and placed before a holy icon in time of serious sickness or the threat of a storm to implore Divine protection, as the family is gathered in prayer. The blessed candle is popularly called the ‘hromnicja’ or ‘hromnichka’ from our Ruthenian word ‘hrom’ (thunder), because it is used at the time of a thunder storm. It is also used by the parents to dispel the fear in children caused by darkness or thunder.
“The candle blessed on the Feast of the Presentation is also used when the Last Rites of the Church are administered to a member of the family. It should also be placed into the hand of the dying as the priest recites The Prayers for the Departure of the Soul, sending him to God as the ‘champion of Faith’ (St. John Chrysostom, Hom. on Hebr., IV, 7).”
So too with the Armenians: “The night before the feast, Armenians traditionally light candles during an evening church service, carrying the flame out into the darkness (symbolically bringing light into the void) and either take it home to light lamps or light a bonfire in the church courtyard.” On it goes through the other Rites of the Church.
There have been secular notes on Candlemas as well, from the ridiculous (Groundhog Day) to the sublime. Charles I was crowned on Candlemas, and he was ever after called “the White King” for having worn that colour for the ceremony. Candlemas falling so soon after the day of the King’s murder om January 30, in the years following the regicide much was made of the King’s sacrifice of himself for his peoples.
Candlemas, as a sign of the Light Shining in darkness, does not merely look backward to the past — whether it be Christmas or earthly tales such as the death of Charles. It looks forward to Mardi Gras and Lent, and so to Easter. Nor is this merely the Easter of Our Lord’s resurrection, nor still the many of followed. Candlemas lights our way to Heaven, to the transformation of all the Redeemed. It is far too great a mystery for us to begin to understand without the help of the Church. So let us light our candles at the feast, knowing that they symbolise the incomprehensible glories we can neither fully understand nor accept this side of the grave.
