Presentation of Jesus

The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple
The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple
Observed by	Anglicans, Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox
Type	Christian
Date	2 February (Western Christianity); 15 February (Eastern Christianity)

The Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (also known as Candlemas or Feast of the Purification of the Virgin) celebrates an early episode in the life of Jesus. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Presentation is a feast celebrated on 2 February and is the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, it is one of the twelve Great Feasts, and is sometimes called Hypapante (lit., 'Meeting'). In many Western liturgical churches, Evening Prayer (or Night Prayer) on the Feast of the Presentation marks the end of the Epiphany season. In the Church of England, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas) is a Principal Feast celebrated either on 2 February or on the Sunday between 28 January and 3 February. In some Protestant churches, the feast is known as the Naming of Jesus.

Within the Roman Catholic Church, since the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council, this feast has been referred to as the Feast of Presentation of the Lord, with references to candles and the purification of Mary de-emphasised in favor of the Prophecy of Simeon the Righteous.

Its formal name is either the festival of the Purification of the Virgin (especially in the uniate rites of the Catholic Church), or the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (especially in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church). In the Orthodox Church it is known as The Feast of the Presentation of our Lord and Savior in the Temple, and in Anglican Churches it is known by various names^[1]

Origins

This event is historically pagan in nature, stemming from the celebration of Imbolc or Oimelc prior to Christianity's movement to the northern European countries. It celebrates ewes' milk (Oimelc "ewe milk") or pregnancy (Imbolc "in the belly"). The Goddess Brigid was associated with this holiday. In Ireland it is known as St. Brigid's Day. Both Brigid the Goddess and St. Brigid are associated with sacred flames, wells and springs, smithcraft and healing.

Scripture

The event is described in the Gospel of Luke 2:22–40. According to the gospel, Mary and Joseph took the baby Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem forty days after his birth to dedicate him to God, in line with Jewish law of the time.

Upon bringing Jesus to the temple, the family encountered Simeon; the gospel records that Simeon had been promised "he should not see death before he had seen the Messiah of the Lord." (Luke 2:26) Simeon prayed the prayer that would become known as the Nunc Dimittis, or Canticle of Simeon, and prophesied regarding Jesus. The prophetess Anna (Bible) was also in the Temple, and offered prayers and praise to God for Jesus.

Traditional Candlemas

Traditionally Candlemas was the last feast in the Christian year that was dated by reference to Christmas; subsequent moveable feasts are calculated with reference to Easter, so prior to the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council, Candlemas marked the end of the Christmas and Epiphany season.^[2] The present Roman calendar substitutes the Saturday before the Baptism of the Lord as the final day of the Christmas liturgical season.

The term "Candlemas" refers to the practice found in former Roman Missals whereby a priest on February 2 would bless the candles with an aspergilium for use during the year (said candles must be of beeswax). This practice is called for in the present Roman Missal in which candles are still blessed, some of which are distributed to the faithful for use in the home. In Poland the feast is called "Matka Boska Gromniczna" ("Matka Boska" = "the Mother of God"+"Gromnica" = "beewax candle"). Also in ancient Scotland they would allow children to bring money to their teachers so that he/she could buy them sweets; and the boy and girl who brought the most money would be crowned Candlemas King and Queen and they "ruled" for six weeks and they could make any day a recess and could let any fellow classmate who was in trouble off the hook.

Date

In the Catholic liturgical calendar the Presentation of the Lord falls on February 2, forty days after Christmas. In the Church of England it may be celebrated on this day, or on the Sunday between 28 January and 3 February. In those Eastern churches that have kept the Julian Calendar, 2 February comes out as February 15 of the modern calendar.

The date of Candlemas is established by the date set for the Nativity of Jesus, for it comes forty days afterwards. Under Mosaic law as found in the Torah, a mother who had given birth to a man-child was considered unclean for seven days; moreover she was to remain for three and thirty days "in the blood of her purification." Candlemas therefore corresponds to the day on which Mary, according to Jewish law^[3] should have attended a ceremony of ritual purification. The gospel of Luke 2:22–39 relates that Mary was purified according to the religious law, followed by Jesus' presentation in the Jerusalem temple, and this explains the formal names given to the festival.

In the West, the date of Christmas is now fixed on 25 December, and Candlemas therefore falls the following 2 February. The dating is identical among Orthodox Christians, except that the ecclesiastic 25 December of most Orthodox Christians falls on 7 January of the civil calendar due to a theological dispute related to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, meaning that most Orthodox Christians celebrate the feast on 15 February.

In the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Feast, called "The Coming of the Son of God into the Temple", is also celebrated on February 15.

History

The earliest reference to a celebration was recorded by the intrepid pilgrim nun Egeria, travelling in the Holy Land, 381–384; Egeria reported that February 14 was a day solemnly kept in Jerusalem with a procession to Constantine's Basilica of the Resurrection, with a homily on Luke 2:22 (which makes the occasion perfectly clear), and a Liturgy. This so-called [Itinerarium Peregrinatio] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("Pilgrimage Itinerary") of Egeria does not offer a name for the Feast, however.

The date February 14 proves that in Jerusalem at that time, Christ's birth was celebrated on January 6, Epiphany. Egeria writes for her beloved fellow nuns at home:

"XXVI The fortieth day after the Epiphany is undoubtedly celebrated here with the very highest honor, for on that day there is a procession, in which all take part, in the Anastasis, and all things are done in their order with the greatest joy, just as at Easter. All the priests, and after them the bishop, preach, always taking for their subject that part of the Gospel where Joseph and Mary brought the Lord into the Temple on the fortieth day, and Symeon and Anna the prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, saw Him, treating of the words which they spake when they saw the Lord, and of that offering which His parents made. And when everything that is customary has been done in order, the sacrament is celebrated, and the dismissal takes place."

An Armenian miniature illustrating the subject (Mugni Gospels, ca. 1060).

In 542 the feast was established throughout the Eastern Empire by Justinian. In Rome, the feast appears in the Gelasian Sacramentary, a manuscript collection of the seventh and eighth centuries associated with Pope Gelasius I, but with many interpolations and some forgeries. There it carries for the first time the new title of the feast of Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Late in time though it may be, Candlemas is still the most ancient of all the festivals in honor of the Virgin Mary. The date of the feast in Rome was moved forward to February 2, since during the late fourth century the Roman feast of Christ's nativity been introduced as December 25.

Though modern laypeople picture Candlemas as an important feast throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, in fact it spread slowly in the West; it is not found in the Lectionary of Silos (650) nor in the Calendar (731–741) of Sainte-Geneviève of Paris.

The tenth century Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, bishop of Winchester, has a formula used for blessing the candles. Candlemas did become important enough to find its way into the secular calendar. It was the traditional day to remove the cattle from the hay meadows, and from the field that was to be ploughed and sown that spring. References to it are common in later medieval and early Modern literature; Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is recorded as having its first performance on Candlemas Day, 1602. It remains one of the Scottish quarter days, at which debts are paid and law courts are in session.

Candlemas is chiefly observed today in the Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican traditions. In the Orthodox traditions it is the day on which believers bring beeswax candles to their local church to blessed for use in the church or in the home.

Relation to non-Christian celebrations

Candlemas depends on the date for Christmas: Candlemas follows 40 days after. Many Christians believe there is no independent meaningfulness to the date of Candlemas. It is plausible that some features of Pagan observances were incorporated into Christian rites of Candlemas when the celebration of Candlemas spread to the north and west of Europe, where February 2 was sacred to the Goddess Brighid, or Brigid.

Modern Pagans believe that Candlemas is a Christianization of the Gaelic festival of Imbolc, which was celebrated in pre-Christian Europe (and especially the Celtic Nations) at about the same time of year. This festival marked the mid-way point between the Winter Solstice and the spring equinox. The term "Imbolc" translates as either "in milk" or "in the belly," and marked the birth and nursing of the spring lambs as a sign of the first stirrings of spring in the middle of winter.

Imbolc is called "St. Brigid's Day" or "Brigid" in Ireland, Scotland and Great Britain. Both Brigid the Goddess and Brigid the saint are associated with sacred flames, holy wells and springs, healing and smithcraft. Brigid is a virgin, yet also the patron of midwives.

In Irish homes, there were many rituals centered around welcoming Brigid into the home. Some of Brigid's rituals and legends later became attached to the Christian Saint Brigid, who was the Abbess of Kildare and seen by Celtic Christians as the midwife of Christ and "Mary of the Gael". In Ireland she is the "foster mother of Jesus." The exact date of the Imbolc festival may have varied from place to place based on local tradition and regional climate. Imbolc is celebrated by modern Pagans on the eve of February 2, at the astronomical midpoint, or on the full moon closest to the first spring thaw. Many Neopagans also call their version of the festival "Candlemas".

Some Christians currently counter that there is no evidence that this Gaelic festival was widespread, and that there is no reason to suppose that an Anglo-Celtic festival would have influenced the practice of the Roman church after the late 4th century.

Historians have sometimes argued that the Roman church introduced Candlemas celebrations in opposition to the Pagan feast of Lupercalia; many Christian texts deny this. The Catholic Encyclopædia is definite in its rejection of this argument: "The feast was certainly not introduced by Pope Gelasius to suppress the excesses of the Lupercalia," (referencing J.P. Migne, Missale Gothicum, 691). The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica agrees: the association with Gelasius "has led some to suppose that it was ordained by Pope Gelasius I in 492 as a counter-attraction to the pagan Lupercalia; but for this there is no warrant." Since the two festivals are both concerned with the ritual purification of women, not all historians are convinced that the connection is purely coincidental. Gelasius' certainly did write a treatise against Lupercalia, and this still exists; see Lupercalia.

The tradition that some modern Christians and Pagans observe, of lighting a candle in each window (or in each room), is not the origin of the name "Candlemas", which instead refers to a blessing of candles, whether Christian or Pagan.

Traditions and superstitions

"Down with the rosemary, and so

Down with the bays and mistletoe;

Down with the holly, ivy, all,

Wherewith ye dress'd the Christmas Hall"

— Robert Herrick (1591–1674), "Ceremony upon Candlemas Eve"

As the poem by Robert Herrick records, the eve of Candlemas was the day on which Christmas decorations of greenery were removed from people's homes; for traces of berries, holly and so forth will bring death among the congregation before another year is out. Another tradition holds that anyone who hears funeral bells tolling on Candlemas will soon hear of the death of a close friend or relative; each toll of the bell represents a day that will pass before the unfortunate news is learned.

In the British Isles, good weather at Candlemas is taken to indicate severe winter weather later. It is also the date that bears emerge from hibernation to inspect the weather as well as wolves, who if they choose to return to their lairs on this day is interpreted as meaning severe weather will continue for another forty days at least. In the United States and Canada, Candlemas evolved into Groundhog Day celebrated on the same date.

The earliest American reference to Groundhog Day can be found at the Pennsylvania Dutch Folklore Center at Franklin and Marshall College:

February 4, 1841 — from Morgantown, Berks County (Pennsylvania) storekeeper James Morris' diary …"Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate." [1]

In France, Candlemas (French: La Chandeleur) is celebrated with crêpes, which must be eaten only after eight p.m. If the cook can flip a crêpe while holding a coin in the other hand, the family is assured of prosperity throughout the coming year.

In Mexico, Candlemas (Spanish: Día de La Candelaria) is celebrated with Tamales. Tradition indicates that on January 5, the night before Three Kings Day (the Epiphany), whoever gets one or more of the few plastic or metal dolls (originally coins) buried within the Rosca de Reyes must throw a party on Candlemas. In certain regions of Mexico, this is the day in which the baby Jesus of each household is taken up from the nativity scene and dressed up in various colorful, whimsical outfits.

Sailors are often reluctant to set sail on Candlemas Day, believing that any voyage begun then will end in disaster — given the frequency of severe storms in February, this is not entirely without sense.

Liturgical celebration

The feast is also known as Candlemas or the Purification of the Virgin, as it also celebrates Mary's return to ritual purity after giving birth, in accordance with the prescriptions of Mosaic law. Since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has put more emphasis on the Prophecy of Simeon and discouraged the use of these alternative names. Pope John Paul II connected the feast day with the renewal of religious vows.

References

Notes

^ including The Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in The Temple (Candlemas) (ECUSA), The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Anglican Church of Canada), and The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas) (Church of England), and The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Anglican Church of Australia). It is known as the Presentation of Our Lord in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
^ If Easter falls early enough, February 2 can fall during the pre-Lenten season (causing omission of "Alleluia" in the Roman liturgy).
^ See Leviticus 12:2–8).

[1] uding The Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in The Temple (Candlemas) (ECUSA), The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Anglican Church of Canada), and The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas) (Church of England), and The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Anglican Church of Australia). It is known as the Presentation of Our Lord in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

[2] If Easter falls early enough, February 2 can fall during the pre-Lenten season (causing omission of "Alleluia" in the Roman liturgy).

[3] See Leviticus 12:2–8).

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