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SeaStar
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I was looking on Pinterest yesterday for some Candlemas crafts, and I was really surprised to see that Candlemas means very different things to different people.
I felt a bit as though I had to walk very carefully through all the posts there- kind of creeped me out. 
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SallyT
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That's interesting. I tend to avoid Pinterest crafts . . . but now I'm curious.
Sally
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Betsy
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Sorry to veer a bit off topic, but will Candlemas be celebrated on Sunday or does the Sunday Mass take precedence? I have candles to be blessed this year.
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guitarnan
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Our parish and our neighboring parish are blessing candles on Sunday. I did not check to see which readings they plan to use.
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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JennGM
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In Ordinary Time feasts of our Lord take precedence to Sundays, so the Presentation of our Lord will be celebrated on Sunday.
Yes, Melinda, lots of paganism and naturalism connected to Candlemas. Seems all those quarterly Church feasts that have nicknames with -mas have been used by others --Michaelmas, Martinmas, Candlemas. Not sure if they have taken over Ladymas (Annunciation). That's a harder one to secularize.
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Betsy
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JennGM wrote:
| In Ordinary Time feasts of our Lord take precedence to Sundays, so the Presentation of our Lord will be celebrated on Sunday |
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Thanks Jenn!
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SallyT
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Yurk. Never mind. I'm not curious.
It did always strike me as odd that the secular/Wicca-fied unschooling group we used to belong to, back in the day, celebrated Martinmas. I did know that it was connected with a particular educational philosophy that a lot of them espoused (about which no more here), but it still seemed strange, that given the group's fairly vehement rejection of Christianity ("We're your refuge from all those awful *religious* homeschoolers!"), this would be a quasi-official group celebration. We never went, partly because I never felt really at home in that group (surprise surprise), and partly because the idea of walking around a lake with lanterns in the cold of November with little children didn't turn me on much, either. Now I'm kind of glad we didn't go. But I also hope that St. Martin intercedes hard for them, and others like them, on his day.
It is interesting that these feasts are attractive to neo-pagans and the like. I'm sure that part of it is that whole turn-of-seasons thing, and the connection to something that *feels* ancient, like a wayside shrine. But also -- as much as their observance of these days might be a door to something unwholesome, I also hope that for them it's a door opening to let in a little light of truth. I don't at all want holy things to be blasphemed by profane usage, but at the same time, I'm making a mental note to pray that the imagery of Candlemas takes hold in a true way in at least one mind this year.
Sally
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JennGM
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I have been pondering the theme of light in our liturgy and the Word and this is the very focus, the solstice and equinox, the sun and light that the neopagan focus has.
I agree, Sally. I am praying that someone will see the True Light, the "Dawn from on high" Who outshines all and overshadows all creation.
It us a gift that as Catholics we can "baptize" these days to bring the focus truly back to God.
There is a lot of modern paganism which says it is reviving ancient customs, but I am a bit dubious. February 1 and 2nd are a real battle to fight for the real catholic feasts. St Brigid was baptized by St Patrick, and founded a religious order and was a nun. Would you remember that when there is do much focus on her way with animals and natural goodness?
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stefoodie
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Since you ladies are talking about this, can anyone help me with something related? I've been in debates online with atheists/agnostics -- usually starts out with something related to the life issues -- but then they choose to veer off to other topics. The Christianization of feasts is one of them -- usually the argument goes, "Well you Christians Christianize everything! That was originally ____insert pagan ritual here___." I must admit I don't know how to answer (thankfully we're usually in a group when we engage in these debates). My thinking is, "So what? What's bad about Christianizing those days? That's one of the goals of 'Christianization'."
I would like to be able to provide a more intelligent, logical answer, that possibly might make an atheist/agnostic listen more carefully. Is there one?
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JennGM
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I hope Sally jumps in, because I know she'll have a really good answer. But here are my flypaper thoughts.
First of all, that argument is not logical -- just because there was an existing pagan custom or feast doesn't make the Catholic one invalid. There is no logic to the argument. But anyway....
Man cannot know God except when God chooses to reveal to us. Man has a natural longing to find and know God and worship. There are various explanations of how things and man were created, how the world continues, etc. There is another innate longing to thank and to worship this God.
History before Christ and before the Israelites shows each civilization found some way to explain this unknown God.
An example of this would be when St. Paul and Silas were in Athens and saw the altar to the Unknown God.
I'm skipping a few steps, but once God revealed Himself to man and sent His son to redeem mankind and open the gates of heaven, that completely shed light and the Truth on all the previously held proposals to explain God.
Jesus gave the mandate to baptize all nations. Missionaries, starting with the Apostles, began to spread the Good News. As these missionaries traveled to different countries, they would see how these people tried to explain God. They often would find a common thread and use that to bring them to know Christ.
We call it "baptizing" or substituting Christian feasts for pagan feasts, but it was actually inserting the Truth, shedding the real Light into the pagan customs, or when something was completely wrong, it was a abolishment.
I'm short of time, and the words aren't flowing, but perhaps that's a start?
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Betsy
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Stef, Google Jimmy Akin and the holiday you are questioning. I know on Catholic Answers Live and in his Blog he has debunked quite a few of these pagan myth arguments.
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JennGM
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Betsy wrote:
Stef, Google Jimmy Akin and the holiday you are questioning. I know on Catholic Answers Live and in his Blog he has debunked quite a few of these pagan myth arguments.
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Good suggestion, Betsy.
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guitarnan
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Some of the medieval saints actually destroyed physical symbols of paganism (St. Boniface, for example) to show that the pagan gods did not exist - another way of demonstrating the truth of Christianity. People who argue that the Church just appropriated pagan feasts and customs don't know their Church history.
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JennGM
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Yes, there is a lot of revisionist history by neo-pagans.
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Catholicism doesn't refute truth or goodness regardless of where it is found. Catholicism holds the fullness of truth. So we may always find things we can agree with in older celebrations or other religions, and there's no reason to take away those things. We just add the fullness of truth.
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SallyT
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My twofold thought:
1. What Nancy said -- in many cases the narrative of "Christianization" of pagan feasts just isn't true. Christmas wasn't originally Saturnalia. Halloween wasn't originally Samhain. And so on. That doesn't mean that Christianity didn't incorporate imagery that had pre-existed in a culture into its feasts, which is why we do have candles and greenery at Christmas, and some cultures do Yule logs, which were originally a Norse pagan thing. But we didn't just change the name of a prior feast and say, "It's ours now!"
2. I'm not sure where the book is now, and it's been some years since I read it, but Pope Benedict (then Cardinal Ratzinger) wrote a beautiful little book on the liturgical year entitled Seek That Which Is Above, if memory serves me. I read it either just before I was Catholic or just after, and one of the chapters that I remember as beautiful and persuasive was about May as Mary's month. One of the claims Benedict/Ratzinger makes is that veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary speaks to the desire of all cultures for a Mother, which prior to Christianity had expressed itself in devotions to various earth goddesses. His view is that Mary fulfills that desire, replacing what was incomplete in truth with something complete and real.
That's a reductive and fuzzy explanation, but at the time I really admired the way he draws the connection between pre-Christian May festivities, with their emphases on fertility and motherhood, and Our Lady -- not that the one replaces, or drives out, the other, but squares the desire for that kind of devotion -- complete with shrines and flowers -- with actual truth.
And I have often thought that, if they could get over seeing her as an anti-feminist icon of total passivity, the Blessed Mother would be the obvious door for all these goddessy ladies I have known. I should really make that an explicit and regular prayer intention, now that I think of it. To my shame, I really hadn't thought of it before now.
Sally
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guitarnan
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Isn't that funny, Sally...I have never thought of the Blessed Mother as passive or anti-feminist! It took such incredible faith and strength of character for her and St. Joseph to do all of the things they did. Someone else might have caved and stayed in Egypt, for example, or walked away from Calvary.
All cultures do need a Mother. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us Our Lady to show us the way to You.
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SeaStar
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Wow- this has spurred some very interesting conversation!
But I have a confession to make...
I started to write this post this morning and then was called away from the computer by my ds before I got past the first few lines (didn't you think it was pretty short for me?  ).
I had to close my lap top and leave it, post unfinished and unsent, and at the time I thought maybe it was just well- wouldn't it be better to just pray for those people than to go public saying their crafts creeped me out?
Anyway, I came back this afternoon and to my surprise found my post posted and several mentions of praying for people! Either I accidentally jarred the computer hard enough when closing the lid to make it self-post, or the Blessed Mother and Jesus really want our prayers for this matter. 
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SallyT
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Ah, your guardian angel was posting for you, maybe! I really am grateful for the suggestion of prayer. I would not have thought about this kind of thing as a deliberate intention had your post not jiggled my mind this way.
And Nancy, I agree, I don't see the Blessed Mother as passive, either, at all. But a lot of women who've bought the really noxious part of the feminist line interpret her "yes" to God as a sign of weakness (because why would you let yourself be impregnated otherwise?). My now-ex-sister-in-law was fond of characterizing the Church's devotion to her as proof of male domination -- apparently they passed over really strong women like Mary Magdalene to focus on the one who "just stayed home with a kid," because that suited their ultimate design of oppressing women in all times and places. I wish I were making that up, but I'm not. In the years she was married to my brother, I spent a lot of holidays counting to ten before I spoke. And I still pray for her. And, since she does love Mary Magdalene (strong woman who did not debase herself by staying home with kid), I hope that good saint prays for her, too.
And yes, I'm grateful for Our Lady's witness, and that of all the saints, and for the bigness and wideness and beauty of our faith -- which at the end of the day *is* so much bigger, wider, and more generous than any of these other narratives, however fallen we practitioners of it are.
So thanks for starting this very cool conversation, Melinda, even if it wasn't what you meant to do.
Sally
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My apologies for taking this conversation on a tangent 
I do think our prayers are needed in this area, Mel!!
Sally, I find myself shaking my head when the same people who would rail at the Church for "patriarchal oppression" accuse us of worshipping Mary.
Thanks for all the answers on Christianization, they are very helpful! I will take notes and share. 
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| not that the one replaces, or drives out, the other, but squares the desire for that kind of devotion -- complete with shrines and flowers -- with actual truth. |
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| All cultures do need a Mother. |
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Beautiful! Thanks, ladies!
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4Real Forums : Domestic Church
Topic: Candlemas...not the same for everyone
