… No, not our 3 Churches this time. This week we celebrate 3 interesting feast days in a row, with a sort of connection running through them.
Monday is the Feast of St Brigid, one of our patrons. Leader of a religious community of men and women in Kildare, Ireland, she is now second patron of that land, after St Patrick himself. There are many traditions about her, one of which is the Cross named after her that she is said to have put together from reeds. You can see a stylised version of it on all the sanctuary furniture in St Brigid’s. But she also had an eternal flame kept in a so-called “fire-house” in the abbey, which lasted until the Reformation.
It’s that flame that provides the link to Tuesday’s feast, the Presentation of the Lord. When the baby Jesus was taken by Mary and Joseph a first son to be presented in the Temple at Jerusalem, he was proclaimed to be the light of the nations by that lovely elderly gentleman Simeon. We commemorate that by blessing candles on this feast, known therefore in the English speaking world as “Candlemas”.
Then those candles lead us on to Wednesday, when we uphold the traditional Blessing of Throats on the Feast of St Blaise. Tradition tells of his healing a child by removing a bone stuck in their throat. Two candles previously blessed are held in the form of a cross and the words said: “Through the intercession of Saint Blase, bishop and martyr, may God deliver you from every disease of the throat and from every other illness: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
If you can, why not attend Mass on any or all of these interesting 3 days, all of them at 9.30am
Monday , St Brigid at St Brigid’s (naturally)
Tuesday, The Presentation/Candlemas at Christ the King
Wednesday, St Blaise at St Paul’s
