{martindwyer.com}
 
WORDS | All Archives |

Chandeleur

January 28, 2012
08:02 AM

Our neighbours have asked us to come around to their house on Tuesday next to eat Crepes for Chandeleur.

I made the assumption that this was a celebration of St. Blaise’s day , this was always the day in Catholic Ireland when we went to the church to have our throats blessed. There we all knelt down at the altar and the priest came and placed crossed candles at our throat to protect us from sore throats during the year to come. Thus , for the last few years , when we saw the time come around for Chandeleur to be celebrated (traditionally with pancakes) at the begining of February , we assumed it came from a devotion to St. Blaise.

When our neighbour invited us to celebrate Chandeleur with them next Tuesday I mentioned St. Blaise and was greeted with a blank stare , it was obvious that she had never heard of him, obviously some research was needed.

First thing I discovered was that I had my dates wrong , Chandeleur is celebrated on the 2nd of February , St. Blaise has his day on the 3rd.
Chandeleur is in fact Candlemas , the day in which people brought their candles into the church to be blessed. This feast seems to have merged in time with the purification of the Virgin Mary (which seems to be like the Catholic post birth churching) and the presentation of Jesus in the temple.

Then I learned something else , Candlemas is thought to be a relic of an ancient pre-christian festival of light . It celebrates the day which is mid way between the shortest day and the spring equinox and the return of brightness.

À la Chandeleur, l’hiver cesse ou reprend vigueur
On Candlemas, winter ends or strengthens

In other words what we have here is a christianisation of an old pagan festival of light christianised as are Christmas and indeed Halloween.
In Ireland, a nation suffering from constant winter colds and flu, we use the candles practically as a guard against sore throats- in France they (typically) use the feast as another excuse to party.

Comments

  1. Brian & Beth

    on January 30, 2012

    Hi there
    Just to remind ye that in Ireland we have the lovely St Bridget’s day – 1st Feb – linked of course to the return of light, spring, greenery etc and in line with the ancient pagan spring rite of Imbolc celebrated at this time of year in the northern hemisphere and for a very long time indeed.
    Cheers
    B & B xx

  2. Martin

    on January 30, 2012

    Well reminded the B’s thank you. I was after forgetting our Bridie (A girl well able to wield a candle against the pagans)

  3. Douce France

    on February 1, 2012

    Hi Martin
    Enjoy the blog and envy you the time in the south of France. Don’t know if you know that James Joyce’s birthday was the 2nd February, Candlemas, and that he attached such importance to it he made sure that A Portrait and Ulysses were published on that day.

  4. Martin

    on February 2, 2012

    Thanks Douce, I had known but forgotten- he is one of my heroes- and he certainly took dates seriously.

The comments are closed.


| All Archives |
  Martin Dwyer
Consultant Chef