The Pointer
Rector The Rt Rev Darren McCartney 028 4175 3497 suffragan1@gmail.com
February 2020
The Magazine of the Church of Ireland Parishes of Clonallon & Warrenpoint with Kilbroney in the Diocese of Down and Dromore Ah … the highs and lows of Christmas! Highs, it may be that we spend time with family in a way that we don’t normally do other times of the year, we eat some wonderful food, we receive some wonderful presents and we hear again the story of the coming of God’s Anointed, the Messiah. Lows, we need to open the belt a notch, jeans a little tighter, perhaps reflecting on how much we spent and for some isolation and loneliness with family and loved ones going back home. Let us take our thoughts elsewhere for a moment. If I were to ask you what phrases from the Christmas story come to mind, what would you recall? It doesn’t take long for the phrases to flood into our conscience. For me, the one that I have found myself drawn back to is: “Greetings, you who are highly favoured!” “Mary was greatly troubled” and then later “I am the Lord’s servant.” … “May it be to me as you said.” Mary has heard that she is favoured by God and then she is given, yes, the wonderful news that she will carry the Lord’s anointed in her womb, yet in reality this would be a mixed blessing for her. She would go from the high, the angel of the Lord conversing with her to the low of misunderstanding and the stress this would bring, not only to her personally but her family and her betrothed and ultimately the horrific death of her child Jesus. As I read Holy Scripture, I am consistently reminded that even though the people of God, his Church, and for that matter us, are loved beyond words by God, yet this does not mean we will be free from the lows. Stress, misunderstanding and heartache are often not
too far away! The writer to the Hebrews tells us that we too carry something special within us, the Spirit of God, the guarantee of what is yet to come. He tells us this to encourage us to think beyond our present circumstances and to remind us of God’s purposes beyond this moral life. Jesus, referring to the same Spirit, calls him the Counsellor. Take comfort that we are not left to face things alone, God’s Spirit is ever with us! Blessings +Darren
Candlemas 2nd February 2020 Many Christians used to say their last farewells to the Christmas season on Candlemas, 2nd February. This is exactly forty days after Christmas Day itself. In New Testament times forty days old was an important age for a baby boy: it was when they made their first ‘public appearance’. Mary, like all good Jewish mothers, went to the Temple with Jesus, her first male child – to ‘present Him to the Lord’. At the same time, she, as a new mother, was ‘purified’ - the Festival of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. So where does the Candlemas bit come in? Jesus is described in the New Testament as the Light of the World, and early Christians developed the tradition of lighting many candles in celebration of this day. The Church also fell into the custom of blessing the year’s supply of candles for the church – hence the name, Candlemas. The story of how Candlemas began can be found in Luke 2:22-40. Simeon’s great declaration of faith and recognition of who Jesus was is of course found in the Nunc Dimittis, which is embedded in the Office of Evening Prayer. But in medieval times, the Nunc Dimittis was mostly used just on this day, during the distribution of candles before the Eucharist. Only gradually did it win a place in the daily prayer life of the Church.