Published on: 23/02/2026
Candlemas, on 2nd February, is a celebration sometimes called “The Presentation” – because it is inspired by the story in Luke 2:22-40, at the end of the Christmas narrative.
The baby Jesus is presented in the temple and Simeon and Anna recognise him as “a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.” The event even finds its way into a Christmas carol: “Angels from the Realms of Glory” in which our very own James Montgomery (1771-1854…and, yes, as in “the JMAT Trust”) wrote”:
Saints before the altar bending,
Watching long in hope and fear,
Suddenly the Lord, descending,
In his temple shall appear.
Come and worship,
Worship Christ, the new-born King.
In school we can declare this as the fullest end of the Christmas season – so the journey that began when we lit that first Advent candle and looked forward to the coming of Christ, ends on a day when we remember him joining his worshipping community.
One thing we can do on this day is have a few thoughts about candles. I’m sure the science lead would have a good few ideas, as would art, but I’m thinking here of collective worship.
This is an opportunity to do what educators do best: restate something many of us know in a new way.
In class or collective worship, we can remind ourselves that, in our school, we light candles to remind us of the presence of God, and the way in which learning is like having the light of God shining in our lives. We look at light, how bright and cheering it can be and the symbol of hope it can offer. One verse a lot of our schools use in their visions is that beautiful one from Psalm 36 where the Psalmist praises God and says:
“For with you is the well of life
and in your light shall we see light.” (Psalm 36:9)
One thing you may want to do is gather the candles. This could be the one used in the hall, or ones used in classrooms – pupils may even bring one from home – but whatever ones we have, we gather them in collective worship. Then we could remind ourselves of the Presentation of Jesus,
or we could just recall that he joined a worshipping community – like ours,
or we could say a prayer of thanks and blessing for candle light and what it can symbolise,
or we could do all of the above.
In this grimmest of grey times, let’s light a candle.