Candlemas Day, Candlemas, Imbolc, Feast of Purification

Candlemas Day, Candlemas, Imbolc, Feast of Purification

Candlemas is a completely old vacation with a Christian-Pagan history. Its Christian model is called the Purification of the Virgin and is the quit/fruits of the forty day period after Mary God-Bearer had her baby on December 25.  Girls had to wait 40 days after childbirth earlier than coming into a church or Temple again because of "uncleanliness". This waiting length remains discovered in jap Orthodox Christian churches today, and all Christian church buildings time table the Christening for 40 days after the start in keeping with this historic purification exercise. Therefore nowadays is Yeshua's Christening or Naming Day while an exorcism is performed and the baby formally enters the Church.

This special 40-day duration in the Christian calendar is considered one of four such in the esoteric Church year.  The other 3 forty-day intervals are:  Fall Equinox  (Sept 21) to Halloween/AllSaints Day (Oct. 31, Nov.1), Spring Equinox (Mar 21)  to can also Day (may additionally 1) and of course, Lent.  Lent is the forty-day duration beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Easter Sunday every year.

Candlemas is a church "edition" of a pagan goddess vacation known as Imbolc wherein human beings mild candles to banish dark spooks. Candlemas is well known at the equal day as that pagan excursion, February 2d. The phrase Imbolc, variously spelled Imbolg, Oimelc and Imelg, approach "ewe-milk" due to the fact that is the time lambs had been born in old England, eire and maximum of Europe for that reason bringing lower back the flow of ewe's milk.

Jennifer Emick writes: February 1, Imbolc
these days (day after today, in step with some calendars) is the day of Candlemas, the competition of lights, a Midwinter competition. Acknowledged to Neopagans and historical Celts as Imbolc (Gaelic foundation, "in milk" or " inside the stomach"), a pageant of the Maiden Goddess and a conventional time to bless agricultural implements (especially the Plough) and livestock.

Neopagans celebrate the vacation with home advantages and lights candles to welcome the coming of the mild and the Goddess in Spring.

In ireland, the day is the competition of St. Bridget, a holdover from celebrations of the Celtic Goddess Brighid. Traditional "corn dollies" and "Bridget's crosses" are normal from straw.

Make a Crown of lighting fixtures for the Candlemas Queen
any other observance is to mild numerous taper candles (seven is exceptional) which are fashioned into a crown, called the Crown of lighting worn by the Candlemas Queen.  See the very cease of this web page for description:  "A Crown of lighting fixtures is prepared for the mom and left via the altar. Historically, the Crown ought to be of candles or tapers, that are lit in the course of the ritual."

Rev. Francis X. Weiser, SJ writes:

The Poles have a beautiful legend that Mary, the mom of God of the Blessed Thunder Candle (Matka Boska Gromniczna), watches on wintry nights around Candlemas, when hungry wolves are on rampage out of doors the napping village. Along with her thunder candle she wards off the ravenous percent and protects the peasants from all harm...

Throughout Europe Candlemas turned into considered one of the incredible days of climate forecasting. Famous perception claims that horrific climate and cloudy skies on February 2 suggest an early and rich summer. If the solar shines through the extra part of Candlemas Day, there can be at the least forty greater days of cold and snow. This superstition is acquainted to all in our well-known tale of the groundhog searching out his shadow on Candlemas Day.


Mark Raines writes:
Imbolc simply is the start of Spring, no matter the truth that there may additionally nevertheless be snow in a few locations and dreary skies almost anywhere! In case you appearance closely, you will see that the snow is only a blanket covering the splendor of the mom, which is ready to shine thru quickly. You'll see the first tips of Spring, in case you're simply seeking out them. On this spirit, Candlemas is well known. (note: Candlemas is the Christianized call for Imbolc, however the  are used nearly interchangeably via many earth-based totally agencies along with Wiccans these days. Groundhog Day is a secularized term, but it draws from a Pagan tradition. More on that in a minute)

Imbolc is intently related to the Celtic-Irish goddess Brigid. Imbolc is sacred to Brigid due to the fact she is a goddess of fireplace, of poetry, and of healing, all matters that go along with the innovative powers of the onset of spring. She is a powerful representation of the Maiden Goddess, and he or she has been nearly flawlessly preserved for us today by means of none other than the Roman Catholic Church. In preference to call her demon and risk the displeasure of all eire, they canonized Brigid and made her the client saint of poetry and healing. This appeased the Irish, who on the time likely noticed the Catholic saints as being very much like gods.

There's one very well-known culture of Imbolc, and that is the way of life of the groundhog's shadow predicting our weather. If a groundhog got here out of its hollow and noticed its shadow, that supposed six extra weeks of awful climate. This lifestyle continues to be extensively celebrated nowadays. Some other subculture is to position a candle on your window on Imbolc Eve, representing the eternal Flame of the Maiden Goddess.

Feast of  Purification

In fantasy and ritual in Christianity, Alan Watts says approximately the banquet of the Purification found in Catholicism, and with the aid of Anglicans and Lutherans: "subsequently, the rites of the Incarnation reach their climax with the feast of the Purification on February 2nd, in any other case known as Candlemas. For at this time the Church blesses all of the lights to be used in its ceremonies thruout the year, because it turned into at Christ's Presentation on the Temple that Simeon referred to as him "the light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the respect of thy human beings."...Because the choir chants...All the clergy and people assembled for Candlemas receive the blessed candles earlier than the altar, and then pass in procession with them around the church, making a song: O daughter of Sion adorn thy bride-chamber and welcome Christ the King: greet Mary with an embrace, who is the gate of heaven, for it's far she who bringeth the King of Glory, of the new light. ... During the mass that follows, all maintain their lighted candles at some point of the chanting of the Gospel" and various other instances inside the rite.

FEBRUARY 2d (Excerpt beneath Ret'd from http://www.Fellowshipofisis.Com/jc/jcfeb1.Html Jan 31, 2004)

Greek: DEMETER and PERSEPHONE; The Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries, second Day:  (for the primary and 1/3 days of Feb., see the above link)

Roman: CERES and PROSERPINE; LUPA. (Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. Vol. Il. P. 51) "the listing of gala's for the complete Christian church was swelled with the aid of the consecration of the day [February 2nd] of the holy virgin Mary, that the people might not pass over their Lupercalia, which they had been familiar with rejoice in the month of February." notice by Soames: "This become instituted inside the reign of Justinian, and stuck to the second of February . . The Latins known as it . . Candlemass; due to the fact many candles have been then lighted up; as had been completed on the Lupercalia, the competition of Proserpine, whom her mom Ceres 'searched for with candles . . See Hospinian, de Fest. Christ, p. Fifty two.

(Whistler, English Fist. P. 86) "the early Church instituted on February second the banquet of lighting, blessed her candles, positioned via the altar in sheaves, and filled her basilicas with candleshine . . 'therefore', stated the Pope, 'what become done earlier than to the respect of Ceres, is now carried out to the -honour of the Virgin'. (Foot-note) Quoted by William Hone, The every-Day book, Vol. 1 Col. 202".

JUNO FEBRUA, The purifier. (Brewer, Dict.) "Candlemas Day. . It became the vintage Roman custom of burning candles to the goddess Februa, mother of Mars, to scare away evil spirits".

Celtic: BRIGANTIA, BRIGHID. (Denning and Phillips, Magical Philosophy, Vol. III. P. 166) "Brigid is the maximum widely effective of the Celtic Goddesses. She is the electricity of the brand new moon, of the spring of the yr, and of the flowing sea. In eire she is maximum famed, and in Britain she changed into Goddess of the huge tribe of the Brigantes. Her festival, from ancient instances to the prevailing, is the second of February, the Celtic FireFestival of Imbolc . . In Pagan instances, her statue become annually washed in sea or lake to have fun her competition, being conveyed ceremonially overland, in a chariot or a boat; in her associated with a deliver - she may be as compared to Isis (word: see March 5th). . Continually with candles and with water will we greet her, the top notch Moon-mother, patroness of poetry and of all making and of the arts of recovery."

(B. Morgan, Matriarchy e-newsletter, No. 2) "just as Hallowe'en marks the retreat into winter darkness and symbolises menstruation on the darkish of the moon, so Candlemass marks the opening out of the herbal international, ovulation, and emerges into the natural light of Spring first glimpsed on the winter Solstice. The gala's symbolise on any other level the Celtic perception in reincarnation; loss of life at Hallowe'en followed by way of gestation inside the darkish area-womb of the Goddess and rebirth in a brand new body at Candlemass. That is the time for initiations in witchcraft, a rebirth of the spirit.

"Candlemass is whilst we come spiralling out again from the darkness, and our matriarchal image, the spiral, appears to recur in many factors of Brigit's cult. The dynamic form of' her crosses, the curling coats of her sheep and perhaps even the twisted patterns in Aran wool, handed down from mom to daughter, are a part of her".

British-Roman: SUL-MINERVA. (B. Morgan, identification.) "Sul-Minerva of bath seems to be same with Brigid; a goddess of expertise and healing with an 'ashless fireplace' in her sanctuary. If Sul, whose name derives from the Celtic phrases for the attention (i.E. Suil) and seeing, is cognate with the Goddess of Silbury Hill, there could well have been a procession at Candlemass to her sacred spring, the Swellowhead, which begins to flow again in February, while the Queen 'comes from the mound' ".

English: THE wives. (Esther Harding, woman's Mysteries, p. 131) "within the north of britain . . Candlemas used to be referred to as The better halves dinner party Day as it became regarded as a fertility pageant".

Popular: THE WITCHES, incredible Sabbat. (Doreen Valiente, ABC of Witchcraft, p. 98) on Druidic links with Witchcraft: "the great Sabbats of the witches are identical with the four top notch yearly festivals of the Druids in Celtic international locations; particularly Beltane (30th April), Lughnassadh (1st August), Samhain (thirty first October) and Imbolc or Oimelc (second February)".

Jewish: THE VIRGIN MARY. (Esther Harding, lady's Myst. P. One hundred thirty) "some other historical festival of candles celebrated lengthy in the past for a moon goddess is now repeated at the identical date, February the second one, for the Virgin Mary, Moon of our Church. . This is the competition of Candlemas. It corresponds in date and customs to the Celtic Holy Day of St. Bride or St. Brigit. St. Brigit is the Christianized shape of the historical Celtic goddess Bridgit or Brigentis, a triune moon goddess whose worship was at one time very huge. On February the primary, as today within the Catholic Church on the pageant of Candlemas, the new fire became kindled and blessed".

(Whistler, English Fest. P. 87) An extract from an account written by a prebendary of Durham, in 1628, of John Cosin, bishop's chaplain, later Bishop of Durham: " 'On Candlemas Day last beyond, Mr. Cozens, in renuing that . . Ceremonie of burning candles in honour of Our Ladye, busied himself from  of the clocke inside the afternoon till foure, in mountain climbing lengthy ladders to paste up wax Candles within the stated Cathedral Church. The variety of all of the Candles burnt that night was two hundred and twenty, except sixteen torches: sixty of these burning tapers and torches standing up, and close to, the excessive Altar . .' " (identification.) "A writer to the Gentleman's mag in 1790 observed at Ripon that 'the Collegiate church was one endured blaze of light all the afternoon, from a giant number of candles'. Today, in all Roman Catholic church buildings, and in a few Anglican ones, the dinner party of lights is remembered, and there is lots blessing and processing with tapers . . Snowdrops are 'Mary's Tapers' - 'Candlemas Bells'. They are the day's precise flower".

THE CANDLEMAS QUEEN. (Farrar, 8 Sabbats, p. Sixty six) "Imbolg, second February . . In Christian tradition, the Crown of lighting fixtures is frequently worn by means of a completely young woman, presumably to symbolize the intense youngsters of the year".

In an example proven with the aid of Dr. Margaret Murray (The God of the Witches, p. 15) the Swedish Lucia-Queen is a girl wearing a crown of seven tapers set in a circle.

THE TRIPLE GODDESS; THE IMBOLG mom. (Farrar, eight Sabbats, p. Sixty six) "Imbolg . . The education:

"The excessive Priestess selects  women witches who, with herself, will constitute the Triple Goddess-Maid (attraction), mother (Ripeness) and Crone (expertise) - and allocates the 3 roles.

"A Crown of lights is prepared for the mother and left by using the altar. Historically, the Crown need to be of candles or tapers, that are lit for the duration of the ritual".

Groundhog Day. (Druids Cal.) "February 2d: Groundhog Day. " (Fell. Of Isis Dir.) "February 2d: Groundhog Day. Right down to Earth for increase".