Candles for Candlemas

It is Candlemas Day tomorrow and we are invited to bring candles to Mass to get them blessed. Get it? Candle + Mass = Candlemas.

It is amazing how many descriptions of Candlemas you find on the 'Net claiming it as an ancient pagan holiday. They call it Candlemas, Candle Mass, and tell you with a straight face it is pagan. Fie!

Oh well. Their ignorance is of no moment. That is a phrase I loved as a kid from "The Three Musketeers." "It is of no moment."

My only worry is that I will run out the door tomorrow preoccupied with picking up Dorothy and forget the candles I have to get blessed. I was thinking of bringing my supermarket St. Anthony candle that a friend gave me when the braces came off my teeth. One thing that has struck me, St. Anthony's was kind vague when it said what kind of candles we could bring.

Could I bring some of my Candle-Lite ...

... Cinnamon Pecan Swirl candles? One of them sits in front of my Our Lady of Victory statue. I wanted to give Our Lady the best candle I had and that was Cinnamon Pecan Swirl.

Could I bring the Pumpkin Pie candles I got the other day at Kmart?

Can I bring a 20-pack of tea lights?

Could my friend Ryan bring the Glade scented oil candles that are his favorite and are, alas, being discontinued?

What about the citronella candles for my back porch?

Or would that all that be disrespectful? Do we need to bring pious regulation white tapers? But I am not allowed to burn tapers. Howard will not let me. I can only burn candles in jars. Or tea lights set in jars. I have tried that and gotten away with it.

As long as I burn candles in glass jars Howard is all right with it.

"Mary is Catholic," he has said. "She lights candles."

True.  I light candles in church for Leonard. And I light candles at home for the heck of it.

At last, a feast day made for me. Candlemas! I love hearing it in conversation. It is like Back to the 14th Century. Last week I was on the phone with our monsignor coordinating Candlemas plans and I loved how he said, "Last year I was out of town on Candlemas day." I am going to have to drop Candlemas into conversation like that.

Candlemas is part of the Christmas cycle which is relevant to me.

Needless to say, my tree is still up!