The Christian overlay on Imbolc is Candlemass. It was presented to us in church this morning in the same way that I described Imbolc yesterday. But it was also the presentation of Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem and the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary - which seems a bit harsh to me, the purification of a virgin and one whose womb has held the son of God.
Still, in the Celtic cycle and the Christian one alike, you can never have too many candles.
Both Imbolc and Candlemass to me personally, symbolise the male and female side of God, God must have both since to lack either would be to lack perfection.
The iron in the soul, strength of body and spirit.
Fire in a time of ice.
In our church, when we say the Nicene Creed, we refer to the Holy Spirit as 'Mother' and 'she'. This gives us a perfect Trinity of God the Father, the Mother and child. The perfect blending of Father and Mother gives forth new life, life of a different nature, flesh.
When we first said the Creed in this way, it was like a jigsaw piece clicking into place for me. I have, for a very long time, spoken to both sides of God, but to have the Holy Spirit, the mother, the giver of life described thus was a moment of completion. I love so much this melding of the Celtic and the Christian.
Is it ironic that the Celts referred to in the New Testament, that is the Galatians, were located in an area of modern Turkey, a secular Muslim state? They were bothered by St. Paul and later became part of the Roman Empire.
But the Celtae were not a race, rather a group of peoples bound by language and culture.
Rather like us. Language, culture and history.
2 comments:
I've always thought of the supreme being as a bit of both.
Why wouldn't s/he be?
Couldn't be otherwise. But I firmly believe that language determines thought. If we use he, and ppl tend not to these days, when we mean he or she, then we are giving supremacy to one gender over the other.
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