What do people do?
Many Christians consider Jesus as
the “light of the world” so it is fitting that candles are blessed on this day
and that a candle-lit procession precedes the mass. It is traditional to eat
crepes on Candlemas in some parts of Europe, such as France. Each family member
prepares and cooks a crepe while holding a coin in hand. This is believed to
assure wealth and happiness until the next Candlemas celebration.
Candlemas is also known as Candelaria in
Spanish speaking countries. Whoever finds baby figures hidden inside the Rosca
de Reyes (Kings Cake) on Epiphany on
January 6 is obliged to bring food to a gathering held on February 2. Many
Orthodox Christians celebrate this event by bringing beeswax candles to their
local church and requesting for these candles to be blessed to be used in the
church or at home. Some Christians observe the practice of leaving Christmas
decorations up until Candlemas.
According to the Mosaic law a mother
who had given birth to a man-child was considered unclean for seven
days; moreover she was to remain three and thirty days "in the blood of
her purification"; for a maid-child the time which excluded the
mother from sanctuary was even doubled. When the time (forty
or eighty days) was over the mother was to "bring to the temple a lamb for
a holocaust and
a young pigeon or turtle dove for sin"; if she was not
able to offer a lamb, she was to take two turtle doves or
two pigeons; the priest prayed for her and so
she was cleansed. (Leviticus
12:2-8)
Forty days after the birth of Christ Mary complied with
this precept of the law, she redeemed her first-born from the temple (Numbers 18:15), and was
purified by the prayer of Simeon the just, in the
presence of Anna the prophetess (Luke 2:22 sqq.). No doubt this event, the
first solemn introduction of Christ into the house of God, was in the
earliest times celebrated in the Church of Jerusalem. We find it
attested for the first half of the fourth century by the pilgrim of Bordeaux, Egeria or Silvia.
The day (14 February) was solemnly kept by a procession to the Constantinian basilica of
the Resurrection, a homily on Luke 2:22
sqq., and the Holy
Sacrifice. But the feast then had no proper name; it was simply
called the fortieth day after Epiphany. This latter
circumstance proves that in Jerusalem Epiphany was then the feast of Christ's birth.
From Jerusalem the feast of
the fortieth day spread over the entire Church and later on
was kept on the 2nd of February, since within the last twenty-five years of the
fourth century the Roman feast of Christ's nativity (25
December) was introduced. In Antioch it is attested in 526
(Cedrenus); in the entire Eastern Empire it was
introduced by the Emperor
Justinian I (542) in thanksgiving for the cessation of the
great pestilence which had depopulated the city of Constantinople. In the Greek Church it was
called Hypapante tou Kyriou, the meeting (occursus) of the Lord and
His mother with Simeon and Anna.
The Armenians call
it: "The Coming of the Son of God into the Temple" and still
keep it on the 14th of February (Tondini di Quaracchi, Calendrier de la NationArménienne,
1906, 48); the Copts term
it "presentation of the Lord in the Temple" (Nilles, Kal. man., II
571, 643). Perhaps the decree of Justinian gave
occasion also to the Roman Church (to Gregory I?) to introduce this
feast, but definite information is wanting on this point. The feast appears
in the Gelasianum (manuscript tradition
of the seventh century) under the new title of Purification of the Blessed
Virgin Mary. The procession is
not mentioned. Pope Sergius
I (687-701) introduced a procession for this
day. The Gregorianum (tradition of the eighth century) does not speak of this procession, which fact proves that
the procession of Sergius was the
ordinary "station", not the liturgical act of
today. The feast was certainly not introduced by Pope Gelasius to
suppress the excesses of the Lupercalia (Migne, Missale Gothicum,
691), and 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. In theEast it
was celebrated as a feast of the Lord; in the West as a feast of Mary; although the
"Invitatorium" (Gaude et lætare, Jerusalem, occurrens Deo
tuo), the antiphons and responsories remind
us of its original conception as a feast of the Lord. The blessing of the candles did not enter
into common use before the eleventh century; it has nothing in common with the procession of the
Lupercalia. In the Latin Church this feast (Purificatio B.M.V.)
is a double of the second class. In the Middle Ages it had an octave in
the larger number of dioceses;
also today the religious orders whose special object is the veneration of
the Mother of God (Carmelites, Servites) and many
dioceses (Loreto, the Province of Siena, etc.) celebrate the octave.
Blessing of candles and
procession
According to the Roman Missal the celebrant
after Terce,
in stole and cope of purple colour, standing at the epistle side
of the altar, blesses the candles (which must
be of beeswax). Having sung or recited the five orations prescribed, he
sprinkles and incenses the candles. Then he
distributes them to the clergy and laity, whilst the choir sings
the canticle of Simeon, "Nunc dimittis".
The antiphon "Lumen
ad revelationem gentium et gloriam plebis tuæ Israel" is repeated
after every verse, according to the medieval custom of
singing the antiphons.
During the procession which
now follows, and at which all the partakers carry lighted candles in their
hands, the choir sings the antiphon "Adorna
thalamum tuum, Sion", composed by St. John of Damascus, one
of the few pieces which, text and music, have been borrowed by the Roman Church from the Greeks. The other antiphons
are of Roman origin.
The solemn procession represents
the entry of Christ,
who is the Light of the World, into the Temple. It forms an essential part
of the liturgical services
of the day, and must be held in every parochial church where the
required ministers can
be had. The procession is
always kept on 2 February even when the office and Mass of the feast is
transferred to 3 February. Before the reform of the Latin liturgy by St. Pius V (1568), in
the churches north and west of the Alps this ceremony was more solemn.
After the fifth orationa preface was sung. The "Adorna" was
preceded by the antiphon "Ave
Maria". While now the procession is held
inside the church, during the middle Ages the clergy left the church and
visited the cemetery surrounding it. Upon the return of the procession a priest, carrying an image
of the Holy Child, met it at the door and entered the church with
the clergy,
who sang the canticle of Zachary, "Benedictus Dominus Deus
Israel". At the conclusion, entering the sanctuary, the choir sang
the responsory,
"Gaude Maria Virgo" or the prose, "Inviolata" or some other antiphon in honour of the Blessed Virgin.
source: (http://www.newadvent.org/)
No comments:
Post a Comment