For who can bear consuming fire, or who can stand the lasting flame? I prayed you would my heart inspire, but cringed away each time you came. Your light, O God, is my desire, but light and heat are one and same.
You ask of me no holocaust, and to your mercy I would turn, would count the wicked world well lost if it were all your flame would burn. You ask my heart, unfit and drossed; this gift alone you will not spurn.
To burn away impurities, burn off the chaff that you would sift: What am I left with after these are gone? No holy hands I lift. Will you destroy the heart you seize and burn to ashes this poor gift?
I pile up others in its place and offer all else to your flare to beg you for a colder grace. I say my office, make my prayer, and turn away, Lord, from your face, hold back the heart that does not dare.
I know, O God, I am a fool and burn already with the shame, for, fadeless light, you are not cruel. Your tongues of fire still call my name. Burn gently as the years unspool, ‘til I become not fuel but flame.
Sometimes the liturgical calendar and the books I’m reading line up—not always as expected. Yesterday was the feast of Candlemas, the Presentation in the Temple, or the Purification of the Virgin (same feast, different names). I’ve been reading Ovid, and yesterday was also the day I came across this passage, from the story of the rape of Prosperina:
Meanwhile Prosperpina’s mother anxiously searched for her daughter over the world, by land and by ocean, but all to no purpose. Neither the dewy dawn nor the evening star ever found her at rest. She lit two torches of pine in Etna’s volcano and bore them in either hand to illuminate her sleepless way through the darkness of frosty night. --Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 5, lines 438-443, tr. David Raeburn
I don’t remember seeing this detail before (though I had read the Metamorphoses ages ago), and I though it could be turned into something Christmas-y. But then I opened Jocobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend, which I’m trying to read through approximately according to the liturgical year, and reading about yesterday’s feast. I cam across this gem, discussing the origin of the procession with lighted candles that is part of the Candlemas liturgy:
Pope Innocent observes that the Roman wives observed a feast of lights that had its origin in some poets’ fables, according to which Proserpina was so beautiful that the god Pluto, smitten with desire, abducted her and made her a goddess. Her kinsmen sought her for a long time through the forests and woodlands with torches and lanterns, and the Roman wives imitated this, going about with torches and candles. Since it is hard to relinquish such customs and the Christians, converted from paganism, had difficulty giving them up, Pope Sergius transmuted them, decreeing that the faithful should honor the holy mother of the Lord on this day by lighting up the whole world with lamps and candles. Thus the Roman celebration survived but with an altered meaning. –Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, “The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” tr. William Granger Ryan
So the idea moved from being just a Christmas idea to being a Candlemas idea, and here it is:
The earth is withered in the grip of winter since Ceres lost her daughter on the green, but she has searched the hither lands and hinter, yet no one knows, and nothing has been seen of her whom Death has made his marble queen, so all things weep, for all of us are injured.
Still Ceres walks; her grief is unabating. She cannot rest, not though deep midnight falls like Death itself, all mortal woes cessating— but she, divine, its stillness merely galls. Bright torches lit, as if to fill glad halls, she carries on her searching and her hating.
And so a light moves on across the darkness, and wise men weep to recognize its claim: That we shall not escape this mortal hardship ‘til life from Death’s own hold blows out the flame as Ceres stalks and calls her daughter’s name and tender heart takes on a mountain starkness.
Take up these lights and bear them to the altar: The seed will fall to earth; the grain grow ripe; stone hearts turn flesh and ice turn back to water; and all this grieving darkness be made bright; and Dis itself be filled with burning light that comes to free each captive son and daughter.
There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer. —Luke 2:33-40
See, the outer walls are crumbling; shadows make another night, yet this temple that you come to inwardly is gleaming bright.
Here is hope forever kindled as a sanctuary flame. All elsewhere its light has dwindled; here alone it burns the same.
Yet the flask of oil is empty: Grace alone this flame has fed as it fills her hands in begging. You supply both oil and bread.
Every day she comes to worship, trusting what she cannot see. Until you dismiss your servant, she will praise your mystery.
Come, O Lord, to this your temple: Show yourself, oh! fill her sight! She has waited, ever faithful: Son of God, reveal your light.
Anna the Prophetess, By Rembrandt – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=157873
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. —Matthew 5:1-12a
Make me meek, that you may bless me with a portion in the land. I am arrogant—oh, best me: Make me bow when I would stand. Yet, O Lord, I mourn already; say my tears have filled your hand.
Make me poor, in wealth, in spirit, that your kingdom may be mine. Rich, I am too full to carry what you give, sev’n times refined, and this grief that I am bearing fills my days before, behind.
Make me hunger for your mercy; make me thirst for righteousness. I have tasted judgment’s burning, vengeance’ wine drunk in excess, yet these tears increased my thirsting, yearning for the bread you bless.
Let my arrogance be done for: Make me humble; make me meek. Give me thirst and give me hunger for yourself: Be all I seek. Come, O Lord, and be my comfort: Let me break the bread of peace.
Egyptian professional mourners in a sorrowful gesture of mourning. – Alma E..”Reader’s Digest: Mysteries of the Bible: The Enduring Question of the Scriptures”.Pleasantville, New York/Montreal.The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.1988.ISBN: 0-89577-293-0Author, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20137834
Primordial chaos coaxed into a pattern as light and dark become the day and night: This world is formed of undivided matter, then separated, spectrumed out of white. The valleys rise; the mountains take their height; and time begins to know before and after.
The dry land lifts with ocean as its border— yet mountains rise in deep abyssal shade. The soil original maintains its order except where springs and streams the heights invade or weaken cliffsides ‘til they shrug, unmade, and humankind cries out to God its warder.
There is no answer: Word sinks down to silence, and we who long for life are drowned in death. The only certainties are rot and violence, though, diligent, we search the length and breadth of earth and sea for ways to keep our breath— in vain between the flood and desert dryness.
And yet the silent Word forever spoken is echoing in every night and day. All times may shattered be, all patterns broken: It lets itself be shaken on the sway of tempests and of earthquakes in their play. Creation groans and something new is woken.
Between the cause and the effect is mercy; between the water and the land is mud. Divinity into our death is bursting to share our desert bone and tempest blood, and God himself is lost beneath the flood and knows our fear of it, and yet our thirsting.
He swallows death, by death our life increasing; our time he pierces with eternity and takes our shattered fragments, mending, piecing. He gathers us, the dry land, and the sea all in himself, yet each itself shall be, and in his endless day go on unceasing.
He walked along from there and saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him. —Matthew 4:18-23
Go on and leave me, children; your hunger is for more. He knows, and he can fill it who calls you from the shore.
I see your way lies elsewhere. Go; leave the nets to me, and you will find them mended if you return to sea—
though you may not. Yet follow the road that leads from sight. It leads through deeps and shallows and onward into light.
And sorely you’ll be tested, and sharply you will fall, but slowly you will get there. Go on, through sun and squall.
Go with him where he leads your through sorrow and through joy, and take the bread he feeds you, for it will be your joy.
His sorrows will transform you; his bread the bread that saves— and I will face those storms, too, out here upon the waves.
Though we shall fail and falter, yet follow that bright gleam: It leads you from these waters to shores we only dream.
Go on and leave me, children: Your way is not the sea, but though our paths are different, his light will come to me.
It’s sleeting, and the Mexican next door is trying to make a snowball from the ice. Remember the first time I went up north? “It won’t make snowballs just because it’s white: If it’s too cold, the crystals, they won’t stick. You can’t make snowmen either, Texas girl.” I’d never known that there was such a thing, “too cold for snowballs.” What, then, is the world? Where I come from, all snow is record snow; we never learn to drive on icy streets. My husband laughs at snowstorms. What is known? The sting of wind; the chattering of teeth; the mortal body crying out for warmth; the comfort of the roof, the closing door— surely these are the same things, south or north— these warming hands. What else would hands be for?
Frost and chill, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever. Hoarfrost and snow, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever. —Daniel 3: 69-70
Ice and snow, bless the Lord: Praise, exalt him over all. Cold as sharp as any sword, mercury, in singing fall.
Wind that brings us to our knees, tears away our fruitless words; praise him, snapping of the trees; praise him, silence of the birds.
Wake we in an altered world; gone the green of yesterday. Hope and heartache, bless the Lord; praise, exalt—yet do not stay.
Nights of vigil, dawns of frost, morning glinting crystal-bright, break a pathway for the lost homeward-leading through the light.
Praise him, yes, and mercy beg. Beauty, be not pitiless. Though the winter sap our strength, may we rest in kindliness.
Praise, exalt him, cold and chill; praise him ‘til the snow departs. Under winter, silent, still, song yet fills our sleeping hearts.
Kate Bluett 
