Winter Triduum

Winter Triduum Vespers

St Brigid’s Eve

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Light in the darkness. Warmth in the snows. Such are the themes of the Church’s winter triduum.

40 days after Christmas comes Candlemas, celebrating the Presentation of Our Lord at the great Temple in Jerusalem. There the prophets Simeon and Anna caught up the Christchild in their arms, proclaiming Him none other than the Light to reveal God to the nations, and the glory of His people Israel.

Because of this, the Church blesses candles this night as symbols of our Lord’s Incarnation, uniting as they do the solid and earthly wax with the intangible glory of light dancing in the air. These candles will be utilized for worship both in our homes and our sanctuary. An old tradition in the east is to light them for prayers of protection during storms. Thus they are sometimes known as thunder-candles. I figure it can’t hurt, what with the weather we get around here.

Candlemas is flanked by two other holidays, the feasts of Sts Brigid and Blaise. Brigid is the patroness of Ireland, said to have been the child of a king and a slave. Her whole life is a tale of wonder, filled with miracles of abundance and generosity. She gave and she gave and she gave. She lived for love of others, and the Irish have never forgotten her. Some have claimed that Brigid was a pre-Christian goddess recast in the image of a saint—but just the opposite is true. Brigid was a historical person, both princess and nun, whom pagans have tried to recast as a god.

It’s hard to blame them, really. Brigid was given a cloak as a child by a druid of the old gods. It is said that she could hang it upon a sunbeam. When she emptied her father’s larder for love of the poor, it is said to have miraculously refilled. And she had a vision one night, as a young woman, of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, at which she served as midwife. She has been known ever after as Mary of the Gaels.

But my favorite story of Brigid is history, not legend. She went all about Ireland founding monasteries and nunneries, her favorite in a place called Kildare. So respected was she that she was regarded as a bishop by special dispensation of God. Yet when she grew old, it was hard to keep those bones of hers warm, and so the nuns at Kildare lit a fire that they tended night and day, so that the warmth might seep into her and abide.

And when at length she died, passing on to claim her heavenly reward, the nuns kept that fire burning in honor and memory of St Brigid—for a thousand years. A thousand-year fire, which has recently been relit!

And finally we have St Blaise, remembered on February 3, who amongst other things saved a young boy who was choking on a bone. The intercession of St Blaise has been sought for centuries for protection against winter illness, and especially infections of the throat. Thus it is tradition that we take a pair of those candlesticks blessed on Candlemas and cross them under the throat to bless the sick and pray that “God deliver you from every disease of the throat and every other disease.”

Candlemas, Brigid and Blaise: the great three days of our winter triduum. We gather around St Brigid’s fire, we proclaim and welcome Christ as the Light of the world, and we pray for blessings of health in this season of ailments and ills. May God bless you in abundance with light, with warmth, with health, and most of all with the blazing fire of His presence, burning within us and among us, in the passion and power of the Holy Spirit.

St Brigid, pray for us.

St Blaise, pray for us.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us, we sinners.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.