The Presentation of the Lord in the Temple—called in Greek Hypapanté, meaning the “meeting” of the Lord with Simeon and Anna, as told in Luke 2—is a moment of salvation history whose significance modern exegetes are increasingly rediscovering.
The liturgical reform of 1960 restored to the feast its original rank as a “Feast of the Lord.” Already in the 4th century it was celebrated, as the pilgrim Egeria testifies when describing the solemnity in Jerusalem. She notes that it was celebrated forty days after Epiphany; but once the East adopted Christmas, the Presentation was celebrated forty days after the Nativity, according to the law.
Sermons by Saints Gregory of Nyssa and Cyril of Alexandria show that it was not only the “Mother Church” of Jerusalem that kept the feast at such an early date. Under Emperor Justinian, February 2 was declared a public holiday throughout the Eastern Empire. In the West, the feast was introduced in the mid-7th century. Rome adopted it under the title “of Saint Simeon,” and the Gelasian Sacramentary is the first to give it the name Purificatio sanctae Mariae. In popular tradition, we call it “Candlemas.”
Today’s celebration is the oldest of the Roman processions, which went—as all processions did—from the chapel of Saint Adrian in the Forum to Saint Mary Major. It had a penitential character, serving as reparation for the excesses of the pagan feast (amburbale) that fell at the same time. For this reason, black vestments were originally prescribed, later changed to violet, and since the reform of 1960, to white.
The solemn blessing of candles first appears in liturgical sources of the 10th century. The rite naturally draws its inspiration from the words of Simeon: “a light for revelation to the Gentiles…”—words that give the feast its epiphanic meaning and reveal its true spirit.
