Filipino Families of Skokie

“Thus, through co-responsible participation in the mission of the Church, the Christian becomes a builder of communion, of peace, of the solidarity that Christ has given us, and collaborates in the realization of the salvific plan of God for the whole of humanity. The challenges that it meets, calls Christians to walk together with others, and the mission is an integral part of this path with all. In it we bear, though in vessels of clay, our Christian vocation, the inestimable treasure of the Gospel, the living testimony of Jesus dead and resurrected, encountered and believed in the Church.” -Pope Benedict XVI, message for World Mission Sunday

Other Christian Persecution Stories

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February 2nd is the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord.

Our Lady of the Candles (Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria) is also known as the Candlemas Virgin. It was the title given to Our Blessed Virgin Mary in commemoration of the Presentation of Jesus and Mary’s own rite of Purification according to Jewish Law.

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Article sources: newadvent.org (Catholic Encyclopedia),
Photo sources: en.wikipilipinas.org, daughter of the King, theleastofallthefaithful

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Now Thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word in peace;

Because my eyes have seen Thy salvation,

Which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples:

A light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel

February 2nd is the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord.

Our Lady of the Candles (Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria) is also known as the Candlemas Virgin. It was the title given to Our Blessed Virgin Mary in commemoration of the Presentation of Jesus and Mary’s own rite of Purification according to Jewish Law.

According to the Mosaic law a mother who had given birth to a man-child was considered unclean for seven days; moreover she was to remain three and thirty days “in the blood of her purification”; for a maid-child the time which excluded the mother from sanctuary was even doubled. When the time (forty or eighty days) was over the mother was to “bring to the temple a lamb for a holocaust and a young pigeon or turtle dove for sin”; if she was not able to offer a lamb, she was to take two turtle doves or two pigeons; the priest prayed for her and so she was cleansed. (Leviticus 12:2-8)

Forty days after the birth of Christ, Mary complied with this precept of the law, she redeemed her first-born from the temple (Numbers 18:15), and was purified by the prayer of Simeon the just, in the presence of Anna the prophetess (Luke 2:22 sqq.). No doubt this event, the first solemn introduction of Christ into the house of God, was in the earliest times celebrated in the Church of Jerusalem. We find it attested for the first half of the fourth century by the pilgrim of Bordeaux, Egeria or Silvia. The day (14 February) was solemnly kept by a procession to the Constantinian basilica of the Resurrection, a homily on Luke 2:22 sqq., and the Holy Sacrifice. But the feast then had no proper name; it was simply called the fortieth day after Epiphany. This latter circumstance proves that in Jerusalem Epiphany was then the feast of Christ’s birth.

From Jerusalem the feast of the fortieth day spread over the entire Church and later on was kept on the 2nd of February, since within the last twenty-five years of the fourth century the Roman feast of Christ’s nativity (25 December) was introduced. In Antioch it is attested in 526 (Cedrenue); in the entire Eastern Empire it was introduced by the Emperor Justinian I (542) in thanksgiving for the cessation of the great pestilence which had depopulated the city of Constantinople.

Article sources: Newadvent.org (Catholic Encyclopedia),
Photo sources: en.wikipilipinas.org, daughter of the King, theleastofallthefaithful

The Feast of the Presentation of our Lord , February 2, 2012

The Nunc dimittis (also Song of Simeon or Canticle of Simeon) is a canticle from a text in the second chapter of Luke (Luke 2:29–32) named after its first words in Latin.

Simeon was a devout Jew who, according to the book of Luke, had been promised by the Holy Ghost that he would not die until he had seen the Saviour. When Mary and Joseph brought the baby Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem for the ceremony of consecration of the firstborn son (not the circumcision, but rather after the time of Mary’s purification: at least 40 days after the birth), Simeon was there, and he took Jesus into his arms and uttered words rendered variously as follows. (http://en.wikipedia.org)

Lord, now you let your servant go in peace;
your word has been fulfilled:

My own eyes have seen the salvation
which you have prepared in the sight of every people:

a light to reveal you to the nations
and the glory of your people Israel.

“…its a view that has its roots in the thought of Martin Luther in the 16th century reformation…” - Fr. Robert Barron

Watch Fr. Claude (Dusty) Burns response.