Mother Sunday and the White Candle of the Equinox

As we light candles and burn the incense I am gathering up the stuffs for what this new week and this particular Sunday is. Laetare Sunday, the Sunday in which we are joyful, in which we remember joy. This is Mothering Sunday, with so many connotations we may come back to. This is the Sunday right after the Equinox. This is the Sunday when the white Springtide candle is lit, this big tall pillar which isn’t burned down and hunched over melted down with old work and old blessings, but new and with only one blessing:, only one consecration offered up since yesterday:

"We kindle fire this day! In the presence of the Holy Ones:

Without malice, without jealousy, without envy.

Without fear of aught beneath the sun.But the High Gods.

Thee we invoke: O light of life:

Be thou a bright flame before us:

Be thou a guiding star above us:

Be thou a smooth path beneath us;

Kindle thou in our hearts within,

A flame of love for our neighbor,

To our foes, to our friends, to our kindred all:

To all men on this broad Earth.

O merciful son of Cerridwen, From the lowest thing that liveth

To the name that is highest of all."

This is a new candle, and it isn’t even the one we will burn for the Easter Vigil. I snuff it out after lighting the Golden Lantern. Even as we chant and pray we remember the Golden Lamp is light that burns within, the light given from the very source of light, and we ask that it might increase and light all things. And even as I pray this I see what a mess this house is, the cleaning that never happened. Tonight there is the work of cleaning the soul in silence and as we clean the floor in diligence.

Next week is the beginning of Passiontide so it is fitting that this is Mother Sunday. We need the Mother or Passiontide is nothing. Without her all of this business is just sacrifice. It’s just war, it’s just slaughter, calculated offering of life. It’s just the stiff upper lip. The presence of the Mother at the altar is not only the presence of grace, but the presence of redemptive sorrow, sorrow that goes beyond the self or self pity to embrace the suffering child in this world, the suffering child in you, sorrow and love that sees in the offering of the Holy Child, the offering of my child. The nature of the Passion and the sacrifice is changed. The necessary sacrifice becomes the awful offering of my baby that I do not assent to, the offering I woefully accept. I accept the sorrow, I accept the inability, I offer this pain, not this child. I offer my life in this child’s place. And in the Mother the slaughter and sacfirice on the altar becomes rebirth. The cross becomes matrix, becomes open arms, becomes living tree. The tomb, from which there is no delivery, is made cradle, and life, womb.