Candles 

This weekend, Masses will begin a little bit differently than usual, with the blessing of candles for Candlemas. Candlemas is the feast on which we commemorate the presentation of the infant Jesus in the Jerusalem Temple 40 days after His birth. Historically-speaking, the Temple at the time of Jesus was known as the second Temple. The first Temple, built by King Solomon around 1000 B.C., was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. Just before the destruction of Solomon’s Temple, the prophet Ezekiel had a vision of the glorious presence of God leaving the Temple, moving to the East. Towards the end of Ezekiel’s prophecies, after the Temple’s destruction, he has a vision of the glorious presence of God returning from the East to enter a new Temple.  Traditionally, we see the presentation account in St. Luke’s gospel as a fulfillment of Ezekiel’s vision of the Lord’s return.  

Ideally, the liturgy for Candlemas would begin with a solemn candlelight procession of the faithful beginning from a location outside the church. Each person would receive a candle, and with the priest’s blessing of the candles, they would begin to process inside. This would be symbolic of Our Lord’s entrance into the Temple in the arms of Mary as the light of the world. But because such a procession is logistically difficult, we will have a simpler entrance, with the faithful receiving candles as they arrive which will be lit in their pews at the beginning of the liturgy. After blessing them, the priest will process to the sanctuary.  

The candles we use in our churches are made of beeswax, which comes from honeycomb produced by honeybees. The worker bees of the honeybee hive produce the wax comb to store the nectar they gather from flowers to feed the colony. Interestingly, worker bees are all female, yet they do not participate in the reproduction of the species. Instead, they live to protect and feed and care for the hive. Because of their industriousness, their diligence, and the fact that they don’t mate, the worker bees have been likened poetically to the Virgin Mary. The association is strengthened when we consider how, during Mass, the wax provided by the “virgin” bees is consumed as a kind of sacrifice to bring forth light. It is reminiscent of the human nature provided to Christ by the Virgin Mary through which He revealed Himself to the world and offered Himself as a sacrifice for our salvation. Moreover, this sacrifice is foreshadowed at the presentation because the Temple was the place where animal sacrifices were offered to God. 

The feast of Candlemas is immediately followed by the feast of St. Blaise (February 3), the patron saint of those who suffer afflictions of the throat. It is the tradition to bless people’s throats on St. Blaise day with newly blessed candles from Candlemas. So, just as the Masses this weekend will begin differently, they will also end differently, with the priests offering the blessing of throats to the congregation after leading them in the St. Michael prayer.