CANDLEMAS marks the end of the Christmas season (concluding the former Epiphany season of 40 days), and is another feast which finds its origins in ancient pagan festivals, which occurred around this time of the year. Originally celebrated on 14th February (counting from the Epiphany) the feast represented Christ's solemn entry into the house of God, the Temple, and so was called by the Eastern Church 'The Meeting' as the encounter of the Old Testament or covenant represented by old Simeon and Anna with Christ, with the New Testament or new covenant of love, prophesied by Simeon as the 'glory of your people, Israel' by bringing the 'light to enlighten the gentiles.' At the end of the Epiphany season we therefore celebrate the light of Christ finally reaching ourselves as the new Temple of the Spirit of  God 'not built by human hands.'  As gentiles enlightened by the Spirit of Christ through our baptism, our candles represent the baptismal light we have received.

Its Christian origins go back to Mary and Joseph fulfilling the requirements of the Jewish Law that the mother of a male child should go to the Temple 40 days after giving birth to be cleansed by a purification ritual. This involved bringing to the Temple "a lamb for a holocaust and a young pigeon or turtle-dove for sin." If she was not able to offer a lamb two turtle-doves or two pigeons would suffice. By this sacrifice the mother 'redeemed' (i.e. 'bought back') her child from God - thanking him who saved the first-born of the Israelites from the angel of death who took the lives of the first-born of the Egyptians.

The Western Church introduced the feast rather later than the Eastern Churches, but rather curiously as 'The Purification of the Blessed Virgin'- a feast of Mary, even though it drew its origin and much of its liturgy from the east, and in fact added the ceremony of processional candles in the 11th century. The reason is that the pagan Roman festival of Februa or 'Purification' (which gives this month its name) was on 15th February (at that time only one day after the Christian celebration). Later the western Church moved the feast to 2nd February (counting from Christmas rather than from the Epiphany). Only in the last 50 years has the Church called it 'The Presentation of the Lord in the Temple.' The history typifies only too well the neglect and misunderstanding of Rome and the Western Church of the real significance of this feast and the whole missionary significance of this feast and the Epiphany season as a whole, perhaps as a result of the tragically competitive division between Western and Eastern Christianity which led to the eventual separation of their Churches.