It is hard to believe it has been ten years since we celebrated Candlemas for the first time. I look back upon these posts with astonishment to see how much has changed in those years: Tea, Turtledoves and Treading Water and Scenes from the Feast of Candlemas. The three older girls--so young and involved in every aspect of that first Candlemas Tea--are all away at college (actually, one just graduated). The funny baby getting in the way and making us all laugh is now taller than I am. Two new little ones have been born, and my mother has passed away.
Yet, comparing Candlemas 2007 and Candlemas 2017, so much looks the same--the table, the flowers, the candles, the smiles, the evening Mass. This is what I love about our Catholic Faith and all the beautiful traditions that spring from it. It is the constant amidst the change. It roots us in the past, and it points us toward the future.
The tea table on Candlemas 2017:
Pure tea, milk, sugar cubes:
A bouquet of lilies for St. Joseph and Our Lady:
Doves on the votive holder:
Pretty in pink:
The table with the gold Nativity in the background. We kept up two Nativity scenes until Candlemas:
Two little gifts we did not have yet in 2007:
Irish lace:
Three floating candles to represent the Trinity:
The altar about an hour before Mass, with two baskets of beeswax candles ready to be blessed:
Candlelit procession:
The tallest altar boy in this photo was the same little guy praying by the Sacred Heart statue in 2007:
Ten years ago, our eldest daughter observed, "This was such a happy, holy day." The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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