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Thank you... this is a wonderful way to start my work day... Blessings...
Happy Candlemas everybody!
Prayers offered up for the health and comfort of John Paul II as he rests in the hospital several more days.
The change has been slow, yet unrelenting. Since the Winter Solstice, the sun’s setting has daily delayed, if even by one minute, so that journeys and chores once completed in darkness now are accompanied by brilliant twilight.
Yet, even as this change in evening’s day length has been progressing, mornings remain as dark and foreboding as they had a month before. Morning journeys and chores are still completed in darkness. The morning darkness has been unrelenting and slow to change.
But just at the time you receive this newsletter, the mornings too will brighten. With increasing rapidity the sunrise will advance, first by five minutes each week, then nearly by ten. The lengthening of the daylight at morning and night will become obvious.
Because the lengthening of the morning light first becomes obvious around the beginning of February, it is very probable that this helped inspire the tradition of candlelighting that begins the festival of the Presentation of Our Lord on February 2. Surely the brightening of the morning sky would add cheer to the day when the faithful--like the Biblical Simeon-- hail Jesus as “the light of all nations and the glory of Israel” (Luke 2:32). As the great hymnwriter Charles Wesley has declared:
Christ, whose glory fills the skies, Christ the true and only light,
Sun of righteousness, arise, Triumph o’er the shades of night.
Dayspring from on high, be near, Daystar, in my heart appear.
This annual return of morning light and lengthening of the daylight in the Northern Hemisphere certainly influenced our forbearers in the faith as they developed the cycle of feasts and fasts that we know as the Church year. Indeed, the season of preparation for the Paschal Feast of Easter--Lent--derives its name from lengthen, a reference to the lengthening of the daylight.
There is a terrible irony that just as astronomical days grow longer we are very starkly and visibly reminded that our anatomical days grow shorter. As the first buds begin to swell and the first hints of green plants appear our brows are smudged with the residue of lifeless plants and we are told that truth that we would like to deny and yet can never defy: “Remember, you are dust, and to dust you will return.” That change back to the dust of the earth from which we were made is also one that is slow, yet unrelenting.
It is this inevitability that gives Lent and its disciplines such urgency. Knowing not when shall be our last day or hour, we hear all the more sharply the words of St. Paul addressed to the congregation at Corinth:
We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
As we work together with him,
we urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
For he says,
“At an acceptable time I have listened to you,
and on a day of salvation I have helped you.”
See, now is the acceptable time;
see, now is the day of salvation!
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:2
Epistle for Ash Wednesday
The Apostle pleads for his people not to delay in repenting of their sins or in redirecting their lives. The day of salvation may be at hand at any time.
And when it is at hand, will we greet it with the joy and faith that inspired Simeon of old to take the forty-day old Christ child, the “light of nations” in his arms and bless God because now, as it had been promised to him, he could die in peace?
For we know that without Christ, the day of the Lord brings darkness and no light. Again, to quote Wesley’s hymn:
Dark and cheerless is the morn, Unaccompanied by thee,
Joyless is the day’s return, Till thy mercy’s beams I see,
Till they inward light impart, Glad my eyes, and warm my heart.
So it is then, that we should anticipate the lengthening of the daylight and the shortening of our days with the Lenten disciplines of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving to encourage that gift of heart-warming grace. And so it is that we should greet the lengthening of the daylight and the shortening of our days with the final verse of Wesley’s hymn:
Visit then, this soul of mine. Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
Fill me, radiancy divine, Scatter all my unbelief;
More and more thyself display, Shining to the perfect day.
So may we pray. So may we fast. So may we give alms.
So may we change slowly and unrelentingly .
| Lk 2:22-40 | ||
|---|---|---|
| # | Douay-Rheims | Vulgate |
| 22 | And after the days of her purification, according to the law of Moses, were accomplished, they carried him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord: | et postquam impleti sunt dies purgationis eius secundum legem Mosi tulerunt illum in Hierusalem ut sisterent eum Domino |
| 23 | As it is written in the law of the Lord: Every male opening the womb shall be called holy to the Lord: | sicut scriptum est in lege Domini quia omne masculinum adaperiens vulvam sanctum Domino vocabitur |
| 24 | And to offer a sacrifice, according as it is written in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons: | et ut darent hostiam secundum quod dictum est in lege Domini par turturum aut duos pullos columbarum |
| 25 | And behold there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon: and this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Ghost was in him. | et ecce homo erat in Hierusalem cui nomen Symeon et homo iste iustus et timoratus expectans consolationem Israhel et Spiritus Sanctus erat in eo |
| 26 | And he had received an answer from the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. | et responsum acceperat ab Spiritu Sancto non visurum se mortem nisi prius videret Christum Domini |
| 27 | And he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when his parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law, | et venit in Spiritu in templum et cum inducerent puerum Iesum parentes eius ut facerent secundum consuetudinem legis pro eo |
| 28 | He also took him into his arms and blessed God and said | et ipse accepit eum in ulnas suas et benedixit Deum et dixit |
| 29 | Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace: | nunc dimittis servum tuum Domine secundum verbum tuum in pace |
| 30 | Because my eyes have seen thy salvation, | quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum |
| 31 | Which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples: | quod parasti ante faciem omnium populorum |
| 32 | A light to the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel. | lumen ad revelationem gentium et gloriam plebis tuae Israhel |
| 33 | And his father and mother were wondering at those things which were spoken concerning him. | et erat pater eius et mater mirantes super his quae dicebantur de illo |
| 34 | And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother: Behold this child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel and for a sign which shall be contradicted. | et benedixit illis Symeon et dixit ad Mariam matrem eius ecce positus est hic in ruinam et resurrectionem multorum in Israhel et in signum cui contradicetur |
| 35 | And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed. | et tuam ipsius animam pertransiet gladius ut revelentur ex multis cordibus cogitationes |
| 36 | And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser. She was far advanced in years and had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity. | et erat Anna prophetissa filia Phanuhel de tribu Aser haec processerat in diebus multis et vixerat cum viro suo annis septem a virginitate sua |
| 37 | And she was a widow until fourscore and four years: who departed not from the temple, by fastings and prayers serving night and day. | et haec vidua usque ad annos octoginta quattuor quae non discedebat de templo ieiuniis et obsecrationibus serviens nocte ac die |
| 38 | Now she, at the same hour, coming in, confessed to the Lord: and spoke of him to all that looked for the redemption of Israel. | et haec ipsa hora superveniens confitebatur Domino et loquebatur de illo omnibus qui expectabant redemptionem Hierusalem |
| 39 | And after they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their city Nazareth. | et ut perfecerunt omnia secundum legem Domini reversi sunt in Galilaeam in civitatem suam Nazareth |
| 40 | And the child grew and waxed strong, full of wisdom: and the grace of God was in him. | puer autem crescebat et confortabatur plenus sapientia et gratia Dei erat in illo |
I've always loved that short passage about Anna the prophetess. Its inclusion in the gospels shows that the Christian faith opened up opportunities for women to participate as representatives of the new faith.