Jesus likewise shared in them, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the Devil, and free those who through fear of death
had been subject to slavery all their life.
Exodus, Chapter 18,
Verse 18-21
18 “You will
surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you. The task is too
heavy for you; you
cannot do it alone. 19 Now, listen to me, and I will give you some
advice, and may God be with you. Act as the people’s representative before God,
and bring their disputes to God. 20 Enlighten them in regard to the statutes and instructions, showing them
how they are to conduct themselves and what they are to do. 21
But you should also look
among all the people for able and God-fearing
men, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain, and set them over the people as
commanders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.
Our Lord asks us to
lead, follow or get out of the way. Our Lord tells us, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with
me scatters. Therefore, I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven
people, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.”
(Mt. 12:30-31) If you are a leader start leading in the church with a group of
ten; follow where you can and do not hinder the work of the Holy Spirit. Here
is an extract from my book “Coffee with Christ” on the importance of Ground Hog
Day.
I ask Christ if he has
seen the movie, “Ground Hog day”. He laughs and says playfully, “No, but I
inspired it”. I continue, well today is Ground Hog day and tradition say that
if the ground hog sees his shadow there will be six more weeks of winter. Christ asks, “So what happens in the movie?”
I state it is a story of a cranky young man who keeps magically repeating his
ground hog day until he has a life changing attitude toward people and life in
general. Christ says that is the reason for His coming to these coffee clutch’s
with me and that He wants to give me a whole new view of life. This is what I
referred to when I told Nicodemus that a person must be born again to enter the
kingdom. That is you must awaken or give birth to the Spirit of the Father that
is in you-the spirit of love and you must also live in the truth. Your action
and behavior must be true to the spirit the Father reveals to you.
ON
this day the Church solemnly celebrates the presentation of Jesus in the
temple, and the obedience and humility both of Mary and her divine Son, who,
though not subject to the law in regard to purification and presentation, yet
subjected themselves to it. Hence this feast is called the Purification of the
Virgin Mary. In common speech we call it also Candlemas, because on this day
the candles required for the divine service are blessed and carried in
procession.
What
is the design of this custom?
- It
is to remind us that Jesus, the light of the world, was offered up to His
heavenly Father, by Mary, in the temple at Jerusalem, where He was called by
Simeon; a light for the revelation of the gentiles, and the glory of the
people of Israel.
- To
remind us, also, of several important truths, to which the priest refers
in the prayers at the blessings. Thus he prays that as the earthly light
dispels the darkness of night, so Jesus, with the light of His divine
doctrine, may clear away our spiritual blindness and ignorance, and lead
us in the way of virtue; that as the Holy Ghost enlightened Simeon, so He
may also enlighten us to acknowledge Jesus as the true light, to love Him and
follow Him, to keep our hearts from the way of sin, and to guide them in
the way of virtue, and to kindle them with the fire of holy love; finally,
that God may preserve, in soul and body, those who use blessed candles
with devotion, may hear their prayers, and grant them entrance into the
kingdom of the eternal and ever-blessed light.
Today the church celebrates world day
for consecrated life prayer and ask the Lord if He is calling you to be a light
to the world.
One
of the grandest feasts of the Middle Ages and one of only three feasts in the
English language verbally denoted by a Mass (Christmas and Michaelmas being the
other two), Candlemas, or the Feast of the Purification of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, commemorates Our Lady's visit to the Temple in
humble obedience to that clause of the Old Law which requires a woman to be
ritually purified forty days after bearing a son. On the assumption that Our
Lord was born on December 25, the date of Mary's visit to the Temple would be
February 2. It was on this day that Simeon the aged prophet, upon seeing the infant
Jesus, proclaimed him to be "a Light to the gentiles" (Lk. 2.32).
Hence the day has always involved a celebration of light. The most famous of
these customs -- and the one from which the feast takes its common name -- is
the blessing of, and procession with, candles. The day begins with five
beautiful blessings of candles that invoke God's aid in living out
allegorically what the light and fire of a candle symbolize: wisdom and
illumination, purification and charity, and so on. A solemn and penitential procession
(in which the celebrant wears purple) exits and then re-enters the church, at
which point the purple is cast aside for the jubilance of white and a joyful
Mass is offered. One of the more distinctive features of this Mass is that the
candles are held lighted in the hand during the Gospel and from the Sanctus
to the Communion. Candles used in the procession are not the only ones
blessed on this day. Many families traditionally had most or all of their
special candles -- for Advent, St. Lucy's Day, Christmas, or the family shrine
-- blessed on this day.
The
Feast's association with light also made it a great day for predicting the
weather. According to an old legend, if the sun shines bright for the better
part of the day, it means forty more days of winter. From this quaint
superstition came Groundhog Day.
Finally, Candlemas is the absolute
last day for ending the Christmas season. Any Christmas items that had
not been taken down on Epiphany or its Octave were now carefully put away.
Daily Devotions/Prayers
· Drops of Christ’s Blood
Please pray for the soul of my mother Rosella Havermale who died on this feast day in 2002.
[2]Goffine’s
Devout Instructions, 1896.
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