Happy Candlemas!

Today is the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple and also of the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple (the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary). It is the last day of the Christmas Season. Today, all the 'Nativity Tide' responses and prayers end, and we return to those of per annum or 'through the year', to be interrupted on 12 April by the Easter or Paschaltide responses and prayers.

It was on this day that St Simeon the Prophet recited the Nunc Dimittis, Luke 2:29-32, recited every night in the Hour of Compline. 

2:29 Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord, ☩ * according to thy word in peace;

2:30 Because my eyes have seen * thy salvation,
2:31 Which thou hast prepared * before the face of all peoples:
2:32 A light to the revelation of the Gentiles, * and the glory of thy people Israel.

According to a tradition in the Eastern Churches, Simeon had been one of the seventy-two translators of the Septuagint. As he hesitated over the translation of Isaiah 7:14 (LXX: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive...") and was going to correct it to γυνή (woman), an angel appeared to him and told him that he would not die until he had seen the Christ born of a virgin. This would make him well over two hundred years old at the time of the meeting described in Luke, and therefore miraculously long-lived.

The Feast is called Candlemas ('Candle Mass') because on this day many Catholics bring  candles to their Parish Church, where they are blessed and then used for the rest of the year; for Catholics, these blessed candles serve as a symbol of Jesus Christ, who referred to himself as the Light of the World.

Happy Candlemas!

Read much more about the Feast as well as recipes for traditional Candlemas foods on the Candlemas page at FishEaters, the most comprehensive Traditional Catholic source on the web!