Imbolc: an Anglican Recension

THAT GREAT TURNING of Imbolc, the marking of the returning of the light and of the first sights of spring, is twice marked on our ancient calendar: principally, the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, or Candlemas (Feb 2), but also with the Feast of Brigid of Kildare (Feb 1) on the day itself.

To the 6th C holy woman Brigid accrued lightly Christianized survivals of folklore and customs – indeed, she shares a name with a Celtic goddess! – while Candlemas built with much of the same materials upon the commemoration of the Biblical account of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple forty days after his birth (Luke 2:22–40).

With the Biblicist emphasis of the Reformation, Brigid fell off the official Anglican sanctorale in the 16th C; but Candlemas was retained, and remains a major feast to this day. Given the characteristic hospitality of Anglican piety to folk survivals, themes of Brigidine piety continue to be interwoven with the celebration of Candlemas, even as they are subordinated to the greater Yeshuine celebration.

Even in this connection, however, Brigid deserves to be recovered. She is the instantiation of a matrilineal, indigenous faith receptive to divergent traditions, and in her body, in her story, and in her symbols, she organically interweaves them, and creates a single and united practice for a people out of two competing creeds. At worst, we find in her resource the imagination for this seasonal turning; at best, we find in her personality a patroness and a muse: a window to forgotten antiquity, a well where we might continue to draw.

Candlemas

The principal Feast, Candlemas  – the great “Red Letter” day that the Church marks in these days – is the last Feast of the greater Christmas Season: the last of the Season of Lights. Forty days have elapsed since we celebrated the Birth of Christ: the coming of Light and Life into the world. Now, that Light comes to be presented in the Temple, to be marked with the customary prayers and sacrifices. Symbolic of this great moment, candles are blessed, that the blessings of this season might be carried forth into the darkness of the whole year: for darkness is always close at hand, even when the light is waxing and we come to the brighter days of the year. 

Within Christian recension, the Light, of course, is the light of the Incarnation, the mystery of the Word made Flesh, that “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world” (John 1:9). The uncreated Fire of Divinity – otherwise unapproachable and incomprehensible to us for its utter and infinite surfeit of brightness and being – is found wrapped in the frailty and finitude of human flesh, and there discloses to us inherent and accessible deity: God with us.

Christ is presented in the Temple: and the people of God, worshiping him on this day, are presented in and as his Body. His Mother is purified according to the Law: the Church, whom she mystically represents, are purified with her, receiving their purity by the sacrifice God provides, who is figurally Christ. These are the types and figures synthesized in the Collect (Prayer) appointed for this day:

Almighty and everliving God, we humbly pray that, as your only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple in the substance of our flesh, so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  (BCP2019, 601)

This Feast is pregnant with paradox: we see the God of the Temple presented in the Temple by his mother Mary – herself another form of the Temple. There they meet the long-waiting prophets Simeon and Anna, who cry aloud . “Mine eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples: a light to enlighten the nations, and the glory of your people Israel!” (Luke 2:30) And yet it is not the paradox that we are invited to contemplate, but the encounter: it is not the mystery that is held before our eyes, so much as it is very everyday and earthy circumstances and substances. A family, celebrating a rite of passage. Neighbors, joining in their joy. The business and the bustle of religious places and religious assembly. Lights and candles, acts and symbols of offering.

Candlemas marks the end, not only of the greater Christmas season, but also that of Epiphanytide. Within and after the birth of Christ, we celebrate its interior mystery: God’s disclosure to us of the Divine Being and Essence enclosed within human flesh and life. Yet it also looks forward to the work of the Cross, and to the work of the season of Lent: a time of striving, of suffering, and of sacrifice; a time of grace, of growth, and of gratitude. Simeon utters his prayer, and then, giving the Child back to his mother, prophesies, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

 This Feast of Light is an antipode and anticipation of another: the Feast of the Transfiguration (Aug 6), which stands almost exactly half a year away. Dawning light deepens into transfiguring light; transfiguring light deepens and grounds what is epiphanically revealed, and proves the Light (otherwise fleeting and ephemeral) to be solid and enduring by virtue of being illuminating, even as it is being shown and known from another angle. The transfiguring light, moreover, is even more clearly colored and characterized by the shadow of the Cross: indeed, it is at the beginning of the journey to the Cross that the Transfiguration takes place. The transfiguring light, then, embraces and resolves the shadow of death which hangs over every human breath and endeavor: and so we are enveloped and suffused by the Light, which waxes and wanes according to its cycles, and ever shines upon us from ever evolving angles.

Having considered this whole breadth and scope, we do well to return and remember, the figures of the feminine, of the Mystic, the Mother, and the Bride – and here these three elide: Brigid, and Mary, and the Church; as well this aged prophetess Anna, who found her yearnings met in receiving this Christchild into her age-worn bosom. When the light is overbearing and unbearable, she is the figure of Welcome and the nurturing embrace, and a sword pierces her own soul as well. 

 It is said that St. Bridget approached the King of Leinster requesting the land on which to build her monastery. The place she selected in Kildare was ideal. It was near a lake where water was available, in a forest where there was firewood and near a fertile plain on which to grow crops. The King refused her request. Brigid was not put off by his refusal. Rather, she and her sisters prayed that the King’s heart would soften. She made her request again but this time she asked, “Just give me as much land as my cloak will cover.”

Seeing her small cloak, he laughed and granted this request. However, Brigid had instructed her four helpers each to take a corner of the cloak and walk in opposite directions – north, south, east and west. As they did this the cloak began to grow and spread across many acres. She now had sufficient land on which to build her monastery. The King and his entire household were dismayed and amazed. They realized that this woman was truly blessed by God. The King became a patron of Brigid’s monastery, assisting her with money, food and gifts. Later he converted to Christianity. It was on this land in Kildare that she built her dual monastery c.470.

It is also said that she had a habit of miraculously changing water into beer. Nowhere better is this memorialized than in this 10th C poem attributed to her:

I’d like to give a lake of beer to God.

I’d love the heavenly

Host to be tippling there

For all eternity.

I’d love the men of Heaven to live with me,

To dance and sing.

If they wanted, I’d put at their disposal

Vats of suffering.

White cups of love I’d give them

With a heart and a half;

Sweet pitchers of mercy I’d offer

To every man.

I’d make Heaven a cheerful spot

Because the happy heart is true.

I’d make the men contented for their own sake.

I’d like Jesus to love me too.

I’d like the people of heaven to gather

From all the parishes around.

I’d give a special welcome to the women,

The three Marys of great renown.

I’d sit with the men, the women and God

There by the lake of beer.

We’d be drinking good health forever

And every drop would be a prayer.