Candlemas calling

29 Jan 2023 • General

Hello fellow churchgoers!

I hope the February edition of the Parish News finds you well and that you had a wonderful Christmas season.  Can you believe it's already February and Candlemas is upon us? Time sure does fly, doesn't it?

It’s all right: don’t have a heart attack!  That wasn’t really me speaking but an Artificial Intelligence program following my instructions to write a chatty magazine article for Candlemas… It’s scary how much these programs can do now. An average student essay is within their grasp for instance.  But the truth is, they often don’t pass the “sniff test”.  They just aren’t really human, however clever they are at feeding the internet back to us.

Which takes me back to Candlemas, because Candlemas – the Feasts of the Presentation of Jesus Christ in the Temple and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary – is our yearly celebration of a very real baby and a very real mother going to a very real Temple to perform the rituals their religion required: presenting sacrifices to God and praying for purification for Mary (as recorded in Luke chapter 2), 33 days after the equally physical circumcision and 40 days after the birth.

This is no escapist world of twinkling candles and chatty platitudes, but the real world full of joys and sorrows that we know today.  And it celebrates, as you well know, not a mythical God but a God who has become fully one with us, blood and gore included.  God with us in both our joys and sorrows.  God with us a New Year unfolds.

Ritual sacrifices and cleansings are no longer part of our religion.  Nor do we bring our stock of candles to church for blessing (made from the tallow of the slaughtered pigs …).  What the Feast does offer is the opportunity to take a deep breath of God’s Spirit and turn bravely from the cosiness of Christmas to face the more challenging days of Good Friday and Easter and all they represent, taking with us not a just a candle in our hands but the light of Christ in our hearts.  That’s what we’ll be doing at Tretire on Sunday 5th February at 10am if you’re free to join us.

+ David Thomson
(Honorary Assistant Bishop in the Diocese in retirement)