Malachi 3:1-4; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40
40 days after Christmas, the Lord comes to his Temple. In this way he fulfils the prophecy of Malachi, which we had in our first reading today. All lovers of Handle’s Messiah will instantly recognise these words: The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple... Who shall stand on the Day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire… And he shall purify the sons of Levi...
But – according to the paradox of the Incarnation - he comes today not in terrifying power, but in the weakness and vulnerability of infancy. Here is the mystery of Christ: that the Incarnate God, the Lord and universal Saviour, comes to his people and to his holy Temple in littleness, in humility and in obedience. He is obedient in the first place to the law of Moses. According to Moses, a mother must be purified after giving birth, and a first born son must be redeemed. Five times in this passage St. Luke insists that this all happened in obedience to the law. St. Paul summed up the meaning of that in a famous passage of his Letter to the Galatians: When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive the adoption of sons (Gal 4:4). Outwardly then, our Lady is purified, and Jesus is redeemed, and offered or consecrated to God. More truly, to the eyes of faith, Jesus comes in order to sanctify, to purify, to redeem, to fulfil. He comes to bring the presence and grace and blessing of God. He comes to bring God to us, and to bring us to God. And while his parents carry out this Jewish legal ceremony, already now we have a foreshadowing of the final self-offering of Jesus to his Father and to us on the Cross.
The Holy Family enters the Temple in the rank of the poor, so that almost no one amid all the bustling crowds takes the slightest notice of them. Yet, if only they knew, this is the most important moment in the whole history of the Temple. Here the Temple is achieving at last the purpose for which it was built: to be the house of God on earth. But as the Lord blesses it by his presence, so also he heralds its end. For he is himself the perfect Temple of God among us. He is also the efficacious sacrifice that takes away our sins, towards which the sacrifices of animals could only point. He’s also the great High Priest who, as the Letter to the Hebrews says, ever stands before God to intercede for us (7:25). So he is the reality, of which the Temple building was only a sign or shadow. As for Israel, God’s own holy people: in receiving Jesus in her midst, she too at last achieves her purpose. This people was called and chosen and given the promises and covenants and law, in order above all to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. Now, representing all Israel, two faithful Israelites do recognise and acknowledge him, and they break out in joyful praise of God at his sight. Symeon and Anna are filled with that spirit of Prophecy which is present throughout the Old Testament. They are filled also with the Holy Spirit, unleashed especially in the New. Holy Symeon takes up the child in his arms and sings his canticle. The Roman Office gives this to us to sing every night at Compline, as we prepare for sleep: happy in the knowledge and love of Christ. Symeon knows this baby is salvation, and light for the whole world. Now that he has seen this, he is ready to go to God in peace.
And so we have candles, and Candlemas. Candles are symbols of the light of Christ which gives light to the whole world, and is the glory of his people Israel.
We know that the Candlemas procession goes back to at least the 4th century because of the diary of Egeria. Egeria was a Spanish nun who went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem round about the year 380; and she wrote home about all that she saw and heard. So she witnessed the Christian people of Jerusalem on this day imitating the Holy Family in a great procession to the Basilica of Constantine. The Jerusalem procession was easily copied in Rome, partly because pagan Romans already had a festival involving a procession with torches. So very early on the Church copied that, and baptised it.
By the 11th century, at least, the ritual for today had come to include a special blessing of candles for the year. So now we have a blessing of ashes on Ash Wednesday, and a blessing of Palms on Palm Sunday, and a blessing of candles on the Feast of Candlemas.
The Catholic Church still insists on having real lit candles on the Altar for every Mass. They are there not just to light the book for the Priest, but to signify that something special is happening here, something solemn, something holy. And it’s a very Catholic instinct to want everything to do with the sacred liturgy to be specially blessed. So today, traditionally, all Altar candles for the year are blessed, and many other candles besides. It was a custom in many places for the faithful to bring their own candles today, then light their blessed candle on special occasions – above all whenever a family member would lie dying. The mediaeval commentators loved to dwell on the symbolism of candles. The wax is produced by bees, who take nectar for their honey from flowers, without damaging the flower in the process. This reminded our ancestors of our Lady’s virginity, because she bore Jesus without suffering any damage whatever to herself. Then the wick symbolised for them our humanity, and the flame Christ’s divinity. We hold lit candles also at the Paschal Vigils as we renew our baptismal promises. Then for us the flame represents our faith, ever living, and ever to be passed on and shared.
St. Luke’s infancy narrative begins with the Priest Zechariah in the Temple, and now it ends with Jesus in the Temple. The Temple was extremely important to St. Luke. His Gospel ends in the Temple, and we see the infant Church frequenting the Temple in the early part of Acts. Now today we gather in the Temple of the Catholic Church, and we joyfully recognise the presence of Jesus in our midst. With his blessed Mother and St. Joseph we offer him to God; and with him we offer ourselves. This is the meaning of the Mass! Participating in this way in the self-gift or sacrifice of Jesus, we renew our own consecration; we receive a renewed pledge of our redemption; we are confirmed in our determination to be faithful to him until death, and we begin already to live as adopted children of God, in Jesus Christ our Lord.