January 29, 2011
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
FEBRUARY 2ND THE TRADITIONAL END OF THE CHRISTMAS SEASON...THE FEAST OF THE PRESENTATION, often called CANDLEMAS, commemorates the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the presentation of Christ in the temple, which took place 40 days after His birth. The law of God, given by Moses to the Jews, ordained that a woman, after childbirth, should continue for a certain time in a state which that law calls unclean, during which she was not to appear in public, nor presume to tough anything consecrated to God. This term was of forty days upon the birth of a son, and double that time for a daughter. On the expiration of the term, the mother was to bring to the door of the tabernacle, or Temple, a lamb and a young pigeon, or turtle-dove, as an offering to God. These being sacrificed to Almighty God by the priest, the woman was cleansed of the legal impurity and reinstated in her former privileges. St. Luke tells us, that Mary and Joseph took Jesus and went to Jerusalem to sacrifice a pair of doves or two young pigeons, showing that Mary and Joseph were poor. Once in the temple, Jesus was met by Simeon and Anna the prophetess. Simeon, upon seeing the Messiah, gave thanks to the Lord, singing a hymn now called the Nunc Dimittis and he told Mary: "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against, (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed." Simeon thus foreshadowed the crucifixion and the sorrows of Mary at seeing the death of Her Son.
Famous Egeria, writing around AD380, attests to a feast of the Presentaiton in the Jerusalem Church. In 542, the Emperor Justinian introduced the feast to the entire Eastern Roman empire in thanksgivnig for the end to a great pestilence afflicting the city of Constantinople. Perhaps this is when Pope Gregory I brought the feast to Rome. Either way, by the 7th century, it is contained in the Gelasianum Sacramentary. Pope Sergius (687-701) introduced the procession to the Candlemas service recognizing Mary for giving us Jesus Christ the true LIGHT OF THE WORLD.
Candlemas Day was also the day when some cultures predicted weather patterns. Farmers believed that the remainder of winter would be the opposite of whatever the weather was like on Candlemas Day. An old English song goes;
If Candlemas be fair and bright
come winter, have another flight;
If candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Go winter, and come not again.
Thus if the sun cast a shadow on Candlemas day, more winter was on the way; if there was no shadow, winter was thought ot be ending soon. This practice led to the folklore behind "Groundhog's Day," which falls on Candlemas Day.
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