A View From The Vicarage - February

Dear Friends

Jesus Bids Us Shine”

It seems to me that February this year is very much a time of looking both backwards and forwards. 

The month begins with the celebration of Candlemas on February 2nd which this year falls on a Sunday.  Candlemas also known as the Presentation of Christ in the Temple is 40 days after Christmas.  It is the day when we remember the incident which Luke (of course) recalls when Mary and Joseph brought the infant Christ to the Temple.  The old Mosaic Covenant decreed that every first born male was holy to God and had to be redeemed.  As Luke tells us in Jesus’ time the price was a pair of doves or two young pigeons. 

The 40 day old infant so Luke tells us is recognized by two holy people Simeon and Anna.  Simeon’s prophecy is the beautiful prayer known as the Nunc Dimittis.

Simeon’s prophecy looks to the future and Candlemas does the same because it marks the end of our Christmas celebrations.

The day is called Candlemas in remembrance of Simeon’s prophecy that Christ would be “a light to lighten the gentiles.”  Because of this, this has long been the day when candles used in church throughout the year are blessed hence it became known as “the Candle Mass.”

That sense of looking backwards to Christmas and forwards is reinforced at the end of the month.  February 26th is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the 40 days of Lent complete with the theological rollercoaster ride of Holy Week and Easter.

It seems to me that the elision of these two events in the same calendar month is an important and valuable reminder to us of what, as Christians, we’re called to do and to be.

Christ calls each and every person to be bearers and sharers of his light, but that’s not just on occasions when everything is good and we’re content and happy, that vocation to be light bearers is for the times when things are not going well, when we and others face darkness of fear, of sickness, or unpleasantness, of grief.  It’s to those very times and situations which others shun in which the light is most needed.

As we prepare to finally put Christmas behind us and get ready for the long weeks of Lent, let’s commit ourselves anew to be lights shining in the darkness “you in your small corner and I in mine” as the old hymn put it.

With my love and prayers as always.

Ben