One of the most-read features of this blog is the summaries I write on the liturgical year – why are the feasts there, what do they mean, and how can we engage with them in a way that brings our own individual and community devotion to life?  Today is Candlemas, blog-readers, so Christmas is finally over for real (eat up the remains of your Christmas cake this weekend!) and many Churches up and down the land will celebrate it either today or defer it till tomorrow (it’s a common practice in the Anglican Church to defer a major feast to the nearest Sunday). I was planning to write about Candlemas this morning, but Good In Parts has written such a neat summary I’m going to let her tell it to you:

Candlemas (aka The Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple) is the final element of Christmas. Our crib has stayed up in church til this weekend, and we have one at home too but on Sunday they will be put away as we look away from Christmas and towards Lent and Passiontide….As we hear the story of Christ’s Presentation, and his recognition by Simeon and Anna, we remember not just the joy with which Simeon greeted the "light to lighten the Gentiles" but also the foreboding of his words to Mary – "And a sword shall pierce your own soul also". It’s one of those hinge points in the liturgical year.

In the medieval church, this was the festival when all the candles to be used for the rest of the year would be blessed. Today, the Church of England “Common Worship – Times and Seasons” has a lovely provision for marking this transition time. At the end of the Eucharist, during the final hymn each member of the congregation will be given a lighted candle – then the clergy will make our way to the font while the choir sings Simeon’s song, the Nunc Dimittis…Once there we are all brought to focus on our baptism, and recommissioned to bear the light of Christ into the world.