The Meeting of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the Temple
Troparion – Tone 1
Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos, full of grace!
From you shone the Sun of Righteousness, Christ our God.
Enlightening those who sat in darkness!
Rejoice, and be glad, O righteous elder;
You accepted in your arms the Redeemer of our souls,
Who grants us the Resurrection.
Kontakion – Tone 1
By Your nativity, You did sanctify the Virgin’s womb,
And did bless Simeon’s hands, O Christ God.
Now You have come and saved us through love.
Grant peace to all Orthodox Christians, O only Lover of man!
For a wonderful online video telling the story of the presentation:
Click here.
- To learn more about the feast and the icon as well as some suggested activities to do with children.
- For lessons and coloring pages for children. (Scroll down to Feb. 2nd)
- Teens and Adults can read Symeon and Anna by St. Methodius of Olympus (Martyred A.D. 311): Online text or formatted for printing in PDF
Wendy M. (thank you Wendy!) made the following suggestions for celebrating this feast:
- Make honeycomb beeswax candles and have them blessed at your parish on the feast day. The candles are very easy to make. You only need a sheet of honeycomb wax sheet, wick, and possibly a hair dryer (depending whether you live in a warm or cold climate.) Cold wax sheets are very fragile, so it is best to warm it with the hair dryer before rolling the wax around the wick. The following website gives much better instructions: candle-making-guide.com (offering instructions for pillar style candles) and wicksandwax.com (offering instructions for tapered candles). Some craft stores sell them, but they can also be purchased online. A discussion could follow, describing Christ as the “light to bring revelation to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32).
- If you have a small paper icon of the feast, which can be a color printout of an icon found online, and Stockmar Candle Decorating Wax, you can decorate the honeycomb or conventional wax candles in preparation for this feast, or for a baptism or Pascha. Stockmar Candle Decorating Wax as well as well as honeycomb wax for the candle itself, can be found here or here . Candles could also be made in the traditional way by dipping. And paint could be used instead or in addition to, decorating wax.
- Share pictures of your children’s churching and discuss how it relates to the Presentation of our Lord.
- For old children, you may want to examine the service prayers said during a forty-day churching.
- Another activity practiced by some is singing the Prayer of St. Simeon daily until the leavetaking of the feast
Images of candles made by Wendy and her daughter:
The following are links to music downloads for the feast (provided by Molly):
- From the Orthodox Church in America music archive
- St. Symeon’s Prayer
- There are 28 different versions on this page with MIDI files- just scroll down
- Here it is in Slavonic – by Lomakin
- Troparion for the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord in Greek
We have made these beeswax candles at church for the last couple of years and the children love them! I actually turn on the oven in the parish kitchen and stack the wax sheets on top of the stove—it is warm enough to soften them, but not melt them. Then the children come in one at a time to roll them right there on top of the stove! We have other activities going on in the parish hall, so this rotating in of one kid at a time works quite well.
What a beautiful site! So glad to have found you!