The great feasts of our faith are often linked to the annual cycle of the rise and fall of sunlight. The wonderful feast of Candlemas, which we celebrated last Sunday, is actually situated at the midpoint between the shortest day of the year and the spring equinox. With Candlemas behind us, we already we are headed towards longer daylight, more warmth and new growth.
In order to help you be prepared for the Feast of Candlemas on the 2nd of February, I offer you the most beautiful and profoundly moving homily on the meaning of the feast from Pope Benedict XVI of blessed memory.
The season of Christmastide flows beautifully into the season of Epiphany. Today the pagan world recognizes that this Child in the manger is not only fully human but is also the fully divine Son of God.
We are brought to the Temple at a point in time when the Lord Jesus was twelve years of age. In this episode, Mary and Joseph “lose Jesus” for a time. As the story of Jesus’ disappearance is narrated, we see in Luke’s Gospel how Mary and Joseph suffer a terrible experience for three days, much like the three days of Jesus in the tomb.
In the mind of many, the Christian God has been defeated, if He was ever real. God has been vanquished for good by the tiny virus Covid. If God were what He was supposed to be, He would have done away with the pandemic right away and saved the world from these nasty bugs. The wars in the Ukraine and the Middle East are more recent concrete proofs of God’s glaring impotence. But one hundred and eleven years ago tonight, on Christmas Eve 1914, an incredible event took place on the Western Front in France during WWI.