Candlemas

As written by Dom Prosper Guéranger, OSB, in his classic work, Liturgical Year:

"The mystery of today's ceremony has frequently been explained by liturgists, dating from the 7th century. According to Ivo of Chartres, the wax, which is formed from the juice of flowers by the bee, always considered as the emblem of virginity, signifies the virginal flesh of the Divine Infant, who diminished not, either by His conception or His birth, the spotless purity of His Blessed Mother. 

The same holy bishop would have us see, in the flame of our Candle, a symbol of Jesus who came to enlighten our darkness. St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking on the same mystery, bids us consider three things in the blessed Candle: the wax, the wick, and the flame. The wax, he says, which is the production of the virginal bee, is the Flesh of our Lord; the wick, which is within, is His Soul; the flame, which burns on top, is His divinity."

The candles blessed this day are signs of the light of Christ. Just as in His incarnation begun with Our Lord’s birth at Christmas, so they burn to guide us by means of faith through the darkness of sin’s effects, and the penance to overcome it in Lent, leading us toward the great feast of Easter, when His true nature as the Light of the World is manifested by His death and Resurrection.

O Lord, hear my prayer.
℟. And let my cry come unto thee.
Let us pray.
Almighty and everliving God, we humbly beseech thy Majesty, that as thy Only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple in substance of our flesh, so we may be presented unto thee with pure and clean hearts.
Through the same Jesus Christ, thy Son, Our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. 
℟. Amen.