Candlemas

 THE Angel-lights of Christmas morn,

    Which shot across the sky,

Away they pass at Candlemas,

    They sparkle and they die.

Cardinal John Henry Newman, Candlemas 

I didn't get around to posting yesterday, on Candlemas, as I meant to.     But the sunset is from last evening -- it was beautiful and unseasonably warm in this part of the country!  

 I read recently that Candlemas can be thought of (unofficially) in the liturgical year as the heart of a Triduum of Fire, going from St Brigid's feastday on February 1 to St Blaise's memorial today on February 3rd.   More details at the link, and also here.    The unifying theme is light and particularly candlelight.    So in that sense it's not over yet.  

There are a lot of references to fire in the Divine Office, reflecting Scripture, where fire is used at times to represent vice and anger in their effects, or as a symbol for destruction, but also can represent the enlivening fire of the Holy Ghost.   Jesus said:  

“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!"

And you may have heard the story of Abba Joseph 

Abba Lot visited Abba Joseph and said to him: “Abba, to the best of my ability I do my little synaxis, my little fasting; praying, meditating, and maintaining hesychia; and I purge my logismoi to the best of my ability. What else then can I do?”

The elder stood up and stretched out his hands to heaven; his fingers became like ten lamps of fire.

He said to him: “If you are willing, become altogether like fire.”

There are some Candlemas resources listed and linked at Amy Welborn's site.  

You notice that a lot of my photos are of the sky.   Our house here in Oklahoma is surrounded by pasture, fairly featureless except for several cows who haven't yet agreed to be photographed.   But the sky is beautiful, especially at sunrise and sunset.    I like the crescent moon through the trees.