Friday, Feb. 2, 2024
celebrating Candlemas outdoors at home
The Rev. Aaron B. Jenkyn
Celebrating Candlemas at home is about honoring the light and gathering with friends and family to bless the candles that will warm our hearts in the seasons to come. The magic of wintertime in New Hampshire makes this celebration especially beautiful to celebrate outdoors, as we mark the changing of seasons from darkness to light.
Blessing candles outdoors can be as simple as placing a taper candle or tea light in snow or as sophisticated as making an ice lantern or earthen candles to gather around. If you are able, purchase additional candles in advance that might use on your dinner table, or for birthday celebrations, throughout the year, whether you are 6 or 86 you will remember blessing them on Candlemas every time you light them.
As the daylight fades, gather outside and read together as much, or as little, of this liturgy as works for your family. The words have been adapted from the children’s book In the Candles Glow. The words are important, but not as important as the time you are spending gathered together, celebrating Jesus as the light of the world.
A reading from the Easter Exuslset:
On this, your night of grace, O holy Father, accept this candle . . . the work of bees and your servants’ hands . . . for it is fed by melting wax, drawn out by mother bees to build a torch so precious . . . Though [the bee] be tiny in the smallness of her body, she revolves prodigious knowledge in her tiny breast, weak in force but forceful in abilities. She, having determined the change of season, when winter has deposited the hoary frost and then the moderating climate of springtime has swept away the glacial feebleness, she immediately feels the need to come forth to her work.
God of all Creation - we ask your blessing on the bees, and the beekeepers, the flowers and the fields, the land and water, and all Creation. Bless the candles that we use at home and at church, that they may illuminate the way for us today and everyday.
Read the Story of Simeon and Anna found in Luke 2:22-40
Light the candles and pray together:
We thank God for sending us light to help us see in so many different ways. We light this candle to say thank you for its flame which changes into light. We light this candle to say thank you for the moon and stars which light up the night sky and show travelers the way and to say thank you for the sun which gives us day and helps us to see all the colors of the rainbow. And we light this candle to say thank you for Jesus — the Light of the World who came to show us the way to God. Amen.
Sing (or listen to): This Little Light of Mine