THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE: “CANDLEMAS”

Friday is Candlemas Day, the final liturgical celebration of the Nativity cycle of feasts. St. Luke tells us how Our Lady and St. Joseph brought the forty-day old baby Jesus to the Temple in accordance with the requirements of the Law.

     Interestingly, Leviticus 12, in which this Law is laid down, explains that the “purification” of the mother is not a ceremony which takes place in the temple, but rather refers to the entire time between the birth and the presentation. Thus it says “When the time of the mother’s purification is completed…”

     This is why we no longer call this feast “The Purification of Our Lady”, but more correctly, “The Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple”.                                              ~   Fr. Paul Dobson