CANDLEMAS: A Celebration of the Light by Rev. Yanchy Lacska, PhD

In my family of origin, Christmas ended with the celebration of the Epiphany on January 6th. After Epiphany, the Christmas decorations would be put away in Dad’s metal WWII olive-green army footlocker and stored in the garage until after the following Thanksgiving. For other Christian families, however, Christmas decorations were not taken down until after Candlemas on February 2nd. On Candlemas, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopalian, Lutheran, and some other Christian families bring candles to their parish church, where they are blessed by the priest or minister and used throughout the year. These candles symbolize Jesus as the Light of the World.

Early February is generally when everyone grows weary of winter’s cold temperatures and winds, and longs for Spring. Candlemas comes to us with its symbolic and hopeful light to calm our anxious minds and assure us that Spring and warmth will surely come as they always do.

I want to share a story from the mystical tradition of Judaism. It is the story of the shattered vessels, or Shevirat HaKeilim, that may shed new light (forgive the pun) on the symbolism of Candlemas.

In the beginning, when God said, “Let there be light,” sacred vessels went forth, full of divine light to fill the cosmos. But the vessels were not strong enough to contain the divine light, so they shattered, and all the holy sparks of light scattered and were hidden throughout the cosmos. 

This divine light or energy is part of the very molecular structure of the universe. It is the light that the apostles saw at the Transfiguration of Jesus. There is a line in the Gospel of John that usually gets overlooked. While the writer of this gospel is identifying the Logos (the creative energy of the universe) with Jesus, verse four states, “In the Logos was life, and the life was the light of humans. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overpowered it.” This is what Jesus was referring to when he said, “You are the light of the world….let your light shine before everyone” (Matthew 5:14-16).

Thomas Merton saw this in a moment of enlightenment in the center of the shopping district of Louisville, Kentucky. He wrote, “If only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around, shining like the sun.”

The story of the Shattered Vessels teaches us that our task is to find and uncover the holy sparks of divine light in everything and everyone, including in ourselves, and when enough holy sparks have been uncovered, tikkun olam, the repair of creation and the individual soul will be made manifest, reconnecting us to its Divine Source, or what Jesus called, the realm of heaven.

On Candlemas, let’s light a candle and pray to exchange the darkness of doubt for the light of hope, dispel the shadows of fear, and release the divine light within us. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”

The Reverend Father Yanchy Lacska, PhD, is an ordained Orthodox-Catholic priest, an interfaith minister, and a professed member of the Lindisfarne Community. Reverend Lacska has led retreats and workshops internationally and worked as a university professor, psychologist, and hospital chaplain. He is the author of Finding the Way—The Life of Seeker.