04.02.2025
Candlemas Procession in Christ Church Cathedral
The season of Christmas and Epiphany drew to a close on Sunday (February 2) and was marked in Christ Church Cathedral with a beautiful Candlemas Procession.
Celebrated by Archbishop Michael Jackson and sung by the Cathedral Choir the liturgy for the service was in two parts. A candle lit vigil was kept recalling in readings and music the journey of the holy family to the temple courts of Jerusalem, culminating with the singing of the Candlemas Gospel.
The service concluded with a procession in which the congregation’s lighted candles were a sign of the promised Christ, our light and our salvation. The congregation guided by the vergers joined the procession around the cathedral, ending with the clergy in the baptistery.
Candlemas is a feast which draws together a number of themes: presentation, purification, meeting, and light for the world. It is however, bittersweet. The presentation of Jesus in the Temple, greeted by Simeon and Anna, calls for rejoicing. But the prophetic words of Simeon, look towards the passion and Easter.
