HE IS old and approaching death, yet he never wavers in a mysterious premonition.
One day he is drawn to the temple. He sees and he understands.
Now dost thou dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word, in peace. Because my eyes have seen Thy salvation.
“Happy Simeon! figure of the ancient world, grown old in its expectation, and near its end. No sooner has he received the sweet Fruit of Life, than his youth is renewed as that of the eagle, and in his person is wrought the transformation which was to be granted to the whole human race,” wrote Dom Prosper Guéranger, in his essay on today’s Feast of the Purification, also known as Candlemas, the celebration of the appearance of light in this fallen world and the purification of our souls through the elevated mysteries of the Christmas season.
“We must hold as a principle of our spiritual life, that the mysteries brought before us, feast after feast, are intended to work in us the destruction of the old, and the creation of the new man,” said Guéranger.
Happy is he whose life is animated by hope and expectation.
CANDLEMAS HYMN
The angel-lights of Christmas morn,
Which shot across the sky,
Away they pass at Candlemas,
They sparkle and they die.
Comfort of earth is brief at best,
Although it be divine;
Like funeral lights for Christmas gone,
Old Simeon’ s tapers shine.
And then for eight long weeks and more,
We wait in twilight grey,
Till the High Candle sheds a beam
On Holy Saturday.
We wait along the penance-tide
Of solemn fast and prayer,
Whilst song is hushed, and lights grow dim,
In the sin-laden air.
And while the sword in Mary’s soul
Is driven home, we hide
In our own hearts, and count the wounds
Of passion and of pride.
And still, though Candlemas be spent
And alleluias o’er,
Mary is music in our need.
And Jesus light in store.
For more on this feast, known as Candlemas, see here, here, here, here and here.
