The Procession with Candles at Candlemas
by Dom Prosper Guéranger, founding Abbot of the Congregation of Solesmes, taken from his treatment of February 2: The Purification of the Blessed Virgin in Volume 3 of his Liturgical Year.
Filled with holy joy, radiant with the mystic light, excited, like the venerable Simeon, by the impulse of the Holy Spirit – the Church goes forth to meet her Emmanuel. It is this meeting which the Greek Church calls the Hypapante, under which name she also designates today’s Feast. The Church would imitate that wondrous Procession, which was formed in the Temple of Jerusalem the day of Mary’s Purification.
Statue of Our Lady at Clear Creek Abbey.
Let us listen to St. Bernard:
“On this day, the Virgin-Mother brings the Lord of the Temple into the Temple of the Lord; Joseph presents to the Lord a Son, who is not his own, but the Beloved Son of that Lord himself, and in whom he is well pleased; Simeon, the just man, confesses Him for whom he had been so long waiting; Anna, too, the widow, confesses him. The Procession of this solemnity was first made by these four, which, afterwards, was to be made, to the joy of the whole earth, in every place and by every nation. Let us not be surprised at its then being so little; for He they carried was Little! Besides, all who were in it were just, and Saints, and perfect – there was not a single sinner.” (First Sermon On the Purification).
And yet, let us join the holy procession. Let us go to meet Jesus, the Spouse of our souls, as did the Wise Virgins, carrying in our hands lamps burning with the flame of charity. Let us remember the command given us by our Lord: Let your loins be girt, and lamps burning in your hands: and you yourselves like to men who wait for their Lord (St. Luke, xii. 35,36). Guided by faith, and enlightened by charity, we shall meet and know him, and he will give himself to us. The holy Church opens her chants of this Procession with the following Antiphon, which is found, word for word, in the Greek Liturgy of this same Feast.
Adorn thy bride-chamber, O Sion, and receive Christ, thy King. Salute Mary, the gate of heaven; for she beareth the King of glory, who is the new Light. The Virgin stands, bringing in her hands her Son, the Begotten before the day-star; whom Simeon receiving into his arms, declared him to the people as the Lord of life and death, and the Savior of the world.
