Saturday, February 02, 2008

Candlemas and Ashes
American Lutheran Publicity Bureau
1 February 2007
Rev. J. Thomas Shelley, STS

02/01/2008

The change has been slow, yet unrelenting. Since the Winter Solstice, the sun’s setting has daily delayed, if even by one minute, so that journeys and chores once completed in darkness now are accompanied by brilliant twilight.

Yet, even as this change in evening’s day length has been progressing, mornings remain as dark and foreboding as they had a month before. Morning journeys and chores are still completed in darkness. The morning darkness has been unrelenting and slow to change.

But as January ends the mornings too will brighten. With increasing rapidity the sunrise will advance, first by five minutes each week, then nearly by ten. The lengthening of the daylight at morning and night will become obvious.

Because the lengthening of the morning light first becomes obvious around the beginning of February, it is very probable that this helped inspire the tradition of candlelighting that begins the festival of the Presentation of Our Lord on February 2. Surely the brightening of the morning sky would add cheer to the day when the faithful--like the Biblical Simeon-- hail Jesus as “the light of all nations and the glory of Israel” (Luke 2:32). As the great hymnwriter Charles Wesley has declared:

Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ the true and only light,
Sun of righteousness, arise,
Triumph o’er the shades of night.
Dayspring from on high, be near,
Daystar, in my heart appear.
the rest-Excellent!
image

2 Comments:

At 7:52 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am very honored that you chose to post my meditation on a blog that also has works by +Kendal Herman.

A very tasteful picture of a gorgeous stain glass window. Where is the window?

--Rev. J. Thomas Shelley, STS

 
At 9:00 PM, Blogger Pat Dague said...

It is a wonderful meditation!

The window is at the Lady Chapel of the Abbey Church, Waltham Abbey.

Blessings,
Pat Dague

 

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