THE PURIFICATION OF OUR BLESSED MOTHER
Candlemas. This day is the official end of the Christmas season. The candles that are blessed and carried today are to remind us that Jesus is the Light of the world. The name "Candlemas Day" refers to the rite of blessing the candles to be used by the faithful, which is observed with proper solemnity by the Church. In regard to these blessed candles, there are three special periods of life when the Church places those candles, enriched by her benediction, in the hands of her children, and these are: First, at their entrance into this world--when they receive the sacrament of baptism; secondly, when, for the first time, they approach the altar, and from the hands of God's minister receive the Body and Blood of Christ; and, thirdly, when, at the close of life, the soul is about to go forth and meet the Judge of the living and the dead.
We hear Jesus telling to love our neighbor in the Epistle. Also, we see Him calming the sea after the Apostles got afraid of it. He tests them; just like He does to us every day. Life is a test. It just depends how we respond that matters.
This is also the day when Our Blessed Mother goes to the Purification ceremony.
Although she didn't need purification of her soul (since she is the Spouse of the Holy Spirit), she goes to the temple for it anyway, so as to not cause scandal. She is carrying the Redeemer of the world in her arms through the crowds, and no one but Simeon and Anna seem to be aware of it. They are the last of the Old Testament to recognize Him as The One.
The Law of this testament commanded that a woman who had given birth to a son should not approach the Tabernacle for the term of forty days; after which time she was to offer up a lamb as a holocaust, and a turtle dove or a partridge as a sin-offering. But if she were poor, and could not provide a lamb, she was to offer in its stead a second turtle dove or another partridge. The poor offer these meager gifts. Mary is the richest person in the world! She has the Faith of God within her, and she wishes to share it with us.
She is the Tabernacle, the Ark, the Vessel, etc., of God Himself, and she is offering the Lamb of God Himself to the Father as a testament to the world. As our beloved Abbot Gueranger says: '...these laws had been made were espoused to men; Mary was the chaste Spouse of the Holy Ghost, a Virgin in conceiving and a Virgin in giving birth to her Son; her purity had ever been spotless as that of the Angels; but it received an incalculable increase by her carrying the God of all sanctity in her womb, and bringing Him into this world. Moreover, when she reflected upon her Child being the Creator and Sovereign Lord of all things, how could she suppose that he was to be submitted to the humiliation of being ransomed as a slave, whose life and person are not his own? And yet, the Holy Spirit revealed to Mary that she must comply with both these laws...'
I guess we are told by this to obey the laws, but know that we belong to God, and that our offerings are to Him, since being with Him is our ultimate goal. I'd like to end with something from the past, which we don't hear anymore. It is a sequence written by Adam of Saint-Victor in the Middle Ages.
Let us adorn the temple of our souls, and with new hearts bring back again that old man's joy, whose long-cherished wish is granted, as his arms press Jesus to his breast.
This Child is the Standard of the people, filling the Temple with light, our choirs with praise, and our hearts with jubilee. This day is He presented in the Temple, and will another day, when grown to manhood, be offered on the Cross, the offering for sin.
On one side Jesus, on the other Mary; here the sweet Infant, and there the sweet Mother; oh! what a glad sight! But let us devoutly carry within us the work of Light which our lighted tapers symbolize.
The Father's Word is the light; His virginal flesh is the wax; our lighted taper is Christ Himself, who enlightens our hearts with that wisdom which rescues the sinner from the error of his way, and sets him on virtue's path.
He that holds Jesus by love, carries, as our Feast would have him do, the Candle blest with light. So did Simeon love the Father's Word, and fondly carry in his arms the Mother's Babe.
Be glad, O Mother of thy God! simple, pure, unwrinkled, spotless Mother! O Maiden! chosen by the God of thy love, and loved by the God of thy choice.
All beauty is clouded, deformed, and displeasing to him that has seen thine. All sweetness seems bitter, sour or insipid, to the soul that has tasted of thine.
All fragrance, put near thine, grows faint or foul; all other love must cease, or be put but an afterthought, in hearts that feed on thine.
Beautiful Star of the sea! Thou beautiful honour of all mothers! O true Mother of Truth! O path of holy living! O remedy of the world's ills! Source of the fount of that Wine of Life, for which all men should thirst, and whose strength-giving chalice is sweet to the healthy and the sick, and restores the drooping heart!
O Fount sealed up in holiness! pour out on us thy streams! O Fount of inner gardens! water with rivulet's wave our parched and stony hearts!
Overflowing Fount! flow out on us, and wash our hearts' defilements. O Fount sublime, limpid above our thoughts, cleanse thy servants' hearts from an unclean world. Amen.
This great solemnity, which closes the holy season of Christmas, has been established in commemoration of the two last mysteries of our Savior's Birth and Infancy. The most pure and beautiful Virgin, in obedience to the law, presented the child Jesus in the temple, offering a couple of turtle-doves for her purification, and five sicles as a ransom for her first-born, Jesus. On this day is fulfilled the prophecy of Aggeus concerning the Messiah, Agg. ii. 8: "Yet one little while . . . and I will move all nations: and the Desired of all nations shall came, and I will fill this house with glory." This day St. Simeon and holy Anna, full of the Holy Ghost, recognize our Lord and welcome Him into the temple, as the Salvation, the Light, and the Peace of the world.
Wax candles are solemnly blessed on this day, in commemoration of our Lord, whom they represent as the Light of the world: "Three things," says St. Anscliu of Canterbury, "may be considered in the blest candle: the wax, 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." These blest candles are to be carried in procession, in remembrance of that wondrous procession made in the temple by our Lady, St. Joseph, St. Simeon, and holy Anna. They should also be kept, to be used by the faithful either on land or sea, and especially to be lit near the bed of a dying Christian, as a symbol of the immortality merited for us by Christ, and as a pledge of the protection of our Lady.
Let us pray for the 'eyes of Faith' that Simeon and Anna in the temple had. That we may see, Lord.
Let us also strive to imitate the humility of the ever-blessed Mother of God, remembering that humility is the path which leads to lasting peace and brings us closer to God, who gives His grace to the humble.
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