Templar Edification

40 days after the birth of Jesus Christ, the Church celebrates an oft-overlooked holiday that goes by many names. For Protestants, it is the Presentation of Our Lord. Catholics call it the Purification of the Blessed Virgin. For the Orthodox, it is simply Hypapante, “the Meeting.” Yet I confess my own preference for the Anglican name: Candlemas. We find the story of Candlemas in the second chapter of Luke’s Gospel, concluding that early section of canticles we sometimes call Luke: The Musical. 40 days after childbirth complete Mary’s period of ritual cleansing according to the Law of Moses. She may now travel to the Temple in Jerusalem in order to redeem Jesus as her firstborn Son. This harkens back to the tale of the Exodus, when God claimed the firstborn of Israel as His own, be they man or beast—“the males that first open the womb.” The number 40 always carries symbolic importance in the Scriptures; ancient peoples knew that it takes roughly 40 weeks for a pregnant woman to come to ...

The liturgical year of the Western Church begins anew at Advent, the season of four Sundays preceding the Nativity of Our Lord. It is a time of hope and expectation, of preparing our hearts and our homes for the King. In it, we await and we watch for light amidst the dark. When it comes to Yuletide celebrations, the Church often seems out of step with the surrounding culture. We laugh, a bit bitterly, regarding the appearance of Christmas decorations even before Halloween. My children cast covetous eyes upon those homes which have decorated their trees well ahead of Thanksgiving. And who could blame the advance guard? Perhaps you may be one yourself. It’s been a rough few years, a rough couple of decades. Who am I to begrudge someone their joy? If Christmas makes you happy, well, it makes me happy too. And we could all use some good holiday cheer both early and often. Yet Advent offers to us something a little different, something more than simply delayed gratification or finger-waving...