Presentation of the Lord in the Temple

With the feast of the "Presentation of the Lord in the Temple" (Presentation Iesu in Templo), the Christmas season liturgically ends in most Christian traditions. Various Christian churches commemorate on February 2nd of each year, the 40th day after the birth of Jesus on December 25th, that Joseph and Mary brought their child to the temple in Jerusalem by the Torah's requirement and that the prescribed sacrifice for the mother's ritual purification after birthing a child was performed. As with the "Feast of the Circumcision of Christ" on the seventh day after his birth on January 1, Christian liturgy thus transforms a religious ritual from biblical Israel by demonstrating that the family of Jesus fulfilled the requirements of Israelite law.

From a historical-religious perspective, the form of a candle procession commonly used today seems to trace back to Roman cults; for, at specific intervals, the Roman women and men would circle the old city boundary of Rome, the Pomerium, in a candle procession called Amburbale in February, to ritually purify it after winter and prepare it for the spring sowing. From Rome, Latin Christians seem to have brought this custom to Jerusalem, where, from the 4th century onwards, a procession from the birthplace of Jesus, Bethlehem, into Jerusalem is documented, during which the participants carried candles into the Holy City. From this custom, the more common name for the festival in Germany, "Mariä Lichtmess," seems to have derived. Until the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council, the feast of the "Presentation of the Lord in the Temple" also marked the conclusion of the Christmas season in the Roman Rite, which is why in many Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant churches, Christmas trees remain up until February 2nd.

In contrast to this Western custom, the Eastern liturgy emphasizes that according to the presentation in the Gospel of Luke, Hannah, and Simeon recognized the boy Jesus as the "light of the world." The prayer that Simeon is said to have spoken ("Now You dismiss Your servant, O Lord") still shapes Christian evening liturgies today, including the Roman Rite (Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine). The Christian liturgies remind us through their motifs that they consider Christ to be the light that has come into the world to redeem it.