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February's Update

However much, for good or ill, climate change may have to be considered, February is a bitter month when winter really sets in. But perhaps you weren’t aware, light abounds, we’ve now passed the ‘winter solstice’ and have moved beyond the darkest time of year!

  So too, in the cold and dark, there is light for the Church. The first intimations of it come early on: Candlemas, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple happens on February 2nd. He is brought there by his parents Mary and Joseph according to Jewish laws which, until that day, disallowed Mary, having given birth to a male child, to touch anything holy or enter the sanctuary. However, when they came to the Temple it was those who received the holy family, first Simeon, who recognised the light of Christ, praised God and acclaimed Jesus as ‘the light to enlighten the nations.’ There was present as well Anna, a prophetess, who gave thanks for him as her redeemer: so, two very faithful people. Both who had waited a long time and had never given up, were eventually rewarded by seeing the Christ child, revealed by the light that shone in and around him.

This happening in the Temple showed uniquely and wonderfully how light overcame the darkness. The symbol of this is the candle. However much it uses of itself to create other flames, the first candle doesn’t diminish but remains the same despite others taking from it. The service of Christingle, celebrated as a particular service of joy for children, features the orange encompassed by a red ribbon and symbolises the shedding of Christ’s blood on the cross with the sweets of the creative works of God on the outside.

  Others who illuminate this month are St Valentine and the English poet and hymnwriter, George Herbert. Valentine with somewhat tenuous romantic associations, which nonetheless offer a connection for the world today, was martyred at Rome in the third century. George Herbert, greatly distinguished intellectually, became a priest in 1630 and served in the parish of Bemerton near Salisbury.  His beautiful hymns still resound, including ‘King of Glory, King of Peace,’ which is among the best loved.

  February bridges the time between Epiphany and Lent, and though some way off, marks the turning point towards the most important day of the year, Easter Day. So, let us consider, amid the dark and cold, how we might mark this turning to light in our own lives. In the aptly titled poem, ‘Thaw’, Edward Thomas writes:


Over the land freckled with snow

half-thawed

The speculating rooks at their nests cawed,

And saw from elm-tops, delicate

as flower of grass,

What we below could not see,

Winter pass.



Letty Buxton | Emeritus Licensed Lay Minister


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