Christmas Ends Next Sunday, Candlemas

From the Pastor:    Christmas Ends Next Sunday, Candlemas

       When does the Christmas Season end? Many people seem to think that Christmas is already over on December 26. Others assume that the Season extends until January 6, the Feast of the  Epiphany, since the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” would take us to that date. But once I became a priest I “knew” that the Baptism of the Lord, a movable feast, ends the Christmas Season, for that is what the liturgical calendar said. But then I started using the older liturgical calendar and new, ancient insights were presented. It shows the Season of Christmas continuing for 40 days rather than for a meager few hours or days. It can be a strange season, in that the vestment colors, rather than remaining white for the whole season, change quite often. Martyrs’ feasts are kept in red. Epiphany is white, but beginning the Second Sunday after Epiphany the Sunday color becomes green. And, during the years when Septuagesima overlaps Christmas, we even see violet vestments on Sundays! But none of that detracts from the celebration of Our Lord’s Birth. True God coming among us as also True Man is, after all, of absolute importance for our Salvation. Man sinned and so man must make amends. But from the very first sin against God, Who is infinitely deserving of love and obedience from His creatures, man owed Him infinite reparation, something of which finite man was incapable. It seemed as if all hope of repaying such a debt was lost until the Incarnation. By taking on our human nature without losing anything of His Divinity, Jesus, fully God and fully human, set the stage for man’s sin against the infinite love of God to be justly repaid. He, and He alone among men, could offer an infinite, perfect sacrifice of human passion and death, a perfect act of love. Pity the poor heretics who deny either the humanity of Jesus—for without His humanity, man did not make the necessary restitution owed—or the Divinity of Jesus—for if He was just a “great, holy, wise man” but not also God, He was unable to make a perfect sacrifice, substituting for it instead just a relatively pathetic “great” one.
       In the words of that often-quoted (by me) Dom Gueranguer, “The custom of celebrating the Solemnity of our Saviour’s Nativity by a feast or commemoration of forty days’ duration is founded on the holy Gospel itself; for it tells us that the Blessed Virgin Mary, after spending forty days in the contemplation of the Divine Fruit of her glorious Maternity, went to the Temple, there to fulfil, in most perfect humility, the ceremonies which the Law demanded of the daughters of Israel, when they became mothers. The Feast of Mary’s Purification is, therefore, part of that of Jesus’ Birth; and the custom of keeping this holy and glorious period of forty days as one continued Festival has every appearance of being a very ancient one, at least in the Roman Church.” Ahh, Tradition! He traces this now-changed and almost lost tradition all the way back to Mary’s Purification. How did anyone dare to shorten such a treasured season after two thousand years of its celebration? Oh, the hubris of man!
       But that’s enough history for today. Now for some practical instructions. The Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary is also called “Candlemas” due to the long-held tradition of blessing candles before the principal Mass of that day. A long, multiple-prayer blessing is said over the candles and then the people should all proceed from their parish to another neighboring chapel or church where the Mass of the Purification would be held. We used to bless candles in the rectory chapel and have Mass there, so small were we 9 years ago! Perhaps by the second or third year (my memory fails) the daily Mass crowd became so large that we had to move the blessing outdoors near the chapel and process from there to the main church for Mass. Each year more and more people come bringing more and more candles, and it has become a logistical hardship (not quite nightmare status!) to get the people’s candles into place for the blessing before it is time to begin. This year, since the candle blessing falls on a Sunday and we expect 10 times the number of people attending compared to a weekday Candlemas Mass, we will not have a congregational procession. I am rather asking you to bring your candles to the parking lot side of the church and place them under the shade of the large oak tree there. Clearly mark your boxes, bags, trunks, carts, wheelbarrows, and other candle containers with your name so that you can claim your own blessed candles after Mass concludes. I plan, weather cooperating, to bless all of the candles in that area in place of the Asperges sprinkling rite prior to the 10:30 Mass. I will do so from the side doorway while the congregation remains in the pews. The only procession will be the short one done by the altar boys and priests from that door back to the sanctuary.
       I cannot stress enough that it will be necessary for you to arrive with your candles much earlier than you think is necessary. People really do bring multiple boxes loaded with heavy candles and need to carry, haul, drag, or pull them into place, probably blocking traffic as they do so. It may take a lot longer than normal just to get to a parking spot. A word of warning: I will only bless those candles that are in place before we begin. It is a long blessing and will not be repeated until the same feast day next year!

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka