The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Presentation of Jesus in the Temple by Vittore Carpaccio
1510, tempera on panel

(Note to long-time readers: this post is largely the same as last year's with a few additions and modifications.)

In the Latin Rite, today is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. Coming 40 days after our celebration of the birth of Jesus, it's the last feast of the liturgical year that is dated by reference to Christmas. Because of that, it has traditionally been considered the close of the extended Christmas and Epiphany season. There is slight variation in the feast's name in the Orthodox churches, with some calling it The Meeting of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple and others calling it the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. The same variations can be found in the Eastern-rite Catholic churches, as some call it the Feast of the Encounter of Our Lord with Simeon and Anna, others call it The Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple, others call it the feast of the Purification of the Virgin, and at least one, the Melchite Greek church, calls it by the really nifty name Great Feast of the Holy Hypapanty of Our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ and the Purification of The Theotokos. ("Hypapanty" is Greek for "encounter" or "meeting." Theotokos is Greek for "God-bearer," and it's the standard Eastern title for the Virgin Mary.) And of course, those churches that do not use the Gregorian calendar celebrate the feast on February 2nd of the Julian calendar, which is February 14th in ours.

Why the all the variation with the name of today's feast? Well, each of the names actually tells us something important about the event we're celebrating. One website from the Melchite rite describes the feast like this:

The Great Feast of the holy Hypapanty of Our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ and the Purification of the Theotokos commemorates the first encounter or public meeting of Holy God the Son within the Holy Trinity / Our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ as God in human form with His people. Holy God the Son within the Holy Trinity / Our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ met with the priest Simeon and the prophetess Anna when He was brought to the temple for the rite of purification forty days after His birth.

The emphasis there is upon the first encounter of Jesus, God incarnate, with His people, represented by Simeon and Anna in the Temple. The purification referred to there is Mary's purification. Mosaic law said that a woman remained unclean for 7 days after giving birth to a male child, and then she was to wait an additional "three and thirty days" before undergoing a ritual of purification -- 7 + 33 = 40 days. (For a girl child, the waiting period was longer.) That's the ritual they're going to the temple for, and also, as Luke's Gospel tells us, "to present him (Jesus) to the Lord." As a firstborn male, Jesus was to be consecrated to God, which entailed offering a sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. The book of Exodus connects this consecration of the firstborn with the liberation from Egypt. The Israelites are told to tell their children that they do this as a way of remembering how the Lord called them forth from slavery and led them to the Promised Land. For us Christians, the story of the exile in Egypt and the people's eventual release at God's hand is always seen as a story about our slavery to sin and our eventual release through Jesus, our savior. The sacrifice Mary and Joseph are coming to the temple offer is a prefigurement of the real sacrifice that would be offered by Jesus himself, not on his behalf but on ours, which would come later on the cross of Calvary.

So this event of the presentation of Jesus has many reasons for its importance: the encounter of the incarnate God with his people, the recognition and acknowledgement of Jesus as Messiah -- "the Christ" whose arrival Luke says Simeon was awaiting -- by both Simeon and Anna, the consecration of Jesus to God, and the purification of Mary, who is greeted by prophecy about the destiny of her Son.

As you can see from the titles, there's a little ambiguity whether this is a feast of Jesus or a feast of Mary. Of course, all feasts of Mary are primarily and fundamentally feasts of Jesus anyway, but for many years the emphasis was on this as a Marian feast. The feast appeared in the Gelesian Sacramentary in the 8th century under the title the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Up until the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, in the Latin rite it seemed to be called both the Purification of the Blessed Virgin and the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. Now it is officially called the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. It has the liturgical rank of a feast and calls for the wearing of white vestments. Even though the prayers in the liturgy are all centered on Christ rather than on Mary, it's hard to shift the emphasis in people's minds. Last year on the feast of the Presentation, the priest who celebrated the Mass I attended, who is in his 70s, wore his white Marian vestments and we sang Marian hymns. :)

The feast came to be popularly known as Candlemas once it came to include the blessing of candles, which didn't seem to be a common practice until sometime during the 11th century. The candles were supposed to be beeswax (and still are to some percentage), which has various symbolic meanings: some say it represents the virginity of Mary, while others say it represents the humanity of Christ. The blessing of candles still takes place on today's feast, with a lovely prayer of blessing that recalls all the liturgical strands outlined above.

In France, the traditional food for Candlemas Day are crepes. You can go here to find out more about the tradition -- and to get a recipe to make your own.

Of course in North America today is also Groundhog Day, which, believe it or not, is ultimately traced back to Candlemas as well. In some parts of Europe, good weather at Candlemas was taken to mean that bad winter weather still lay ahead. The story goes that bears will emerge from their hibernation on Candlemas to do a weather check and that one should also watch wolves and other animals to see if they return to their lairs on Candlemas. If they do, supposedly they're in the know that wintry weather still lies ahead for some weeks.

This line of thinking is one that the Pennsylvania Dutch brought with them to America. It's these folk beliefs about the day of Candlemas that evolved into Groundhog Day, with its story of the groundhog predicting how much longer winter will last, depending on whether or not he sees his shadow as he emerges from his burrow.