Celebrating The Presentation of the Lord and Candlemas

 

Today, February 2nd we celebrate the Presentation of the Lord and Candlemas.  We celebrate the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the presentation of Jesus in the temple, which occurs 40 days after his birth.  At the temple Jesus was purified by the prayer of Simeon and he also told Mary (as in today's Gospel Luke 2:22-40)

 

 “Behold, this child is destined
for the fall and rise of many in Israel,
and to be a sign that will be contradicted
Band you yourself a sword will pierce
so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

 

 

To learn about and celebrate this feast day we did a few different fun things!  First, our oldest son LOVES candles and we have acquired and made a handful of religious candles that we either use in Our Little Oratory, on Saints Feast Days or just around our home.  We collected all of our candles, lit them and said a special prayer.  We wanted to go to mass this morning, but we ended up having a mini blizzard, so a prayer at home worked well!

Next, we did the activity in Seton's 1st grade Art book for the Presentation of Jesus.  We colored pictures of Joseph, Mary, Baby Jesus, Simeon and Anna and put them in a shadow box.  We then lit a candle in the box to illuminate each character as the children retold the story of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.

For our morning snack we made cookie candles with little cookie drip plates!  Our kids thought these fun little snacks were lots of fun to make and even better to eat! 

During snack time we read and played with one of the boys favorite books Can You Find the Saints?  It is like Where's Waldo with Catholic Saints and Events; one of them being the Presentation! 

Finally, after a fun morning of Liturgical Living the boys went outside to play in the snow and "help" their dad shovel!  Now according to history Candlemas Day was also the day when some cultures predicted weather patterns.  People believed that the remainder of winter would be opposite of whatever the weather was on Candlemas Day!  The old English song went:

If Candlemas be fair and bright,

Come winter, have another fight;

If Candlemas bring clouds and rain,

Go winter, and come not again.

So if this is true, winter might be on it's way out this year!!

 

Happy Feast of The Presentation of the Lord and Candlemas!

 

See what we did last year to celebrate this feast HERE!