In Purificatione Beatae Mariae Virginis, quae dicitur ''Candlemas''

Happy Feast day to all my readers! Candlemas is one of my favourite feasts in the liturgical year for a number of reasons: it is a double feast of Our Lady and Our Lord, and for this reason it encapsulates one of the central mysteries of the Catholic Faith; apropos, how the cult of the Blessed Virgin developed in the Church as a logical juxtaposition to Eve's fall, Mary's relation to Christ in the mystery of Redemption etc. It is one of those feasts where the two Christological themes (Mariology is a form of christology in my opinion) interpenetrate and are seen beautifully in the context of a mother and child in the Temple of God. I see Marian devotion in terms of logic, but there is manifestly more to it than that. I also love Candlemas because of the Liturgy, which to all Catholics ought to be the chief direction of all loves and desires; there is something markedly sacred and resonant about the blessing of candles and the procession.

I was going to translate one of Bl Hildegard of Bingen's (unrelated) Sequences in praise of Our Lady (O viridissima virga, ave), but I haven't had much time (it isn't especially hard but there are one or two points I wasn't sure about and my Latin teacher hasn't got back to me yet! - her style of Latin is rather excentric, which to me indicates that her tutoring was not that good. She seems overly reminiscent of the Scriptures, especially the Psalter, a lot of the time, often saying things like '' et factum est sermo Domini ad me dicens...'' etc, and her spelling is often atrocious!). Instead, here is part of her Symphonia (no. 13) which I translated a while ago; again, I haven't had time to properly peruse it for solecisms, but I'm sure it's mostly accurate:

O quam magnum est in viribus suis

latus viri quo Deus

formam mulieris produxit,

quam fecit speculum

omnis ornamenti sui

et amplexionem omnis creaturae suae.

Inde concinunt caelestia organa

et miratur omnis terra,

o laudabilis Maria,

quia Deus te valde amavit.

O quam valde plangendum

et lugendum est

quod tristicia in crimine

per consilium serpentis

in mulierem fluxit.

Nam ipsa mulier,

quam Deus matrem omnium posuit,

viscera sua cum vulneribus ignorantiae

decerpsit,

et plenum dolorem generi suo protulit.

Sed, O Aurora,

de ventre tuo novus sol processit

quia omnia criminal Eve abstersit

et maiorem benedictionem

per te protulit

quam Eva hominibus nocuisset.

Unde, o salvatrix,

quae novum lumen

humano generi protulisti,

collige membra filii tui

ad caelestem armoniam.

O how great is the strength among his men,

the greatness of men, from which God brought forth the form of a woman.

He made her as a mirror

of all of his adornments

and the embrace of all his creation.

Thence the heavenly harmony sounded

and all the earth marvelled thereat,

O praiseworthy Mary,

since God has greatly loved you.

O how plangent and mournful it is

that sadness in crime

through the counsel of the serpent

flowed into a woman,

For that woman,

whom God placed as mother of all,

destroyed her body with the wounds of ignorance

and brought much sorrow upon her sons.

But, O Dawn,

from your womb a new sun has come forth

who has scared away all the sin of Eve

and has brought forth

greater blessing through you

than Eve did hurt unto Men.

Whence, O saving lady,

you have brought forth a new light to humankind,

gather together the members of your son

into the heavenly harmony.