Presentation of Our Lord
Forty days after the birth of Christ we mark the day Mary and Joseph presented him in the temple in accordance with Jewish law. There a prophetess named Anna began to speak of the redemption of Israel when she saw the young child. Simeon also greeted Mary and Joseph. He responded to the presence of the consolation of Israel in this child with the words of the Nunc dimittis. His song described Jesus as a “light for the nations.”
Because of the link between Jesus as the light for the nations, and because an old reading for this festival contains a line from the prophet Zephaniah, “I will search Jerusalem with candles,” the day is also known as Candlemas, a day when candles are blessed for the coming year.
The Presentation of Our Lord is referred to in some corners of the church as Candlemas because of an ancient tradition of blessing all the candles to be used in the church in the coming year at the mass celebrated on that day. It was a way of underscoring the truth of Simeon’s confession that this baby Jesus was “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” and a light for glory to Israel. Let the light of every candle in church be a little epiphany of the love of God for all people in the person of God’s son, Jesus, the light of the world.
