Rather than Blame or Complain, Light Winter's Blessed Candle -- 3 of 3

On 02/02/2020 I discovered anew, the supernatural power of the Gromnica I grew up with. This year’s 40^th day of Christmas illuminated my eyes with new hope and the spiritual joy the ancients called laetitia.  St Casimir’s Thunder Candles sold out, gobbled up at the festival Mass by hungry 20-somethings.

This time of the year, many settle into grey humdrum, flu infested, cabin fever days. Lighting the wick in blessed beeswax transforms both interior and exterior, physical and spiritual, renovating home and heart into a sweet, warm, gilded glow of our ancestors. 

Outward threats stir doubts caging the soul with temptation, shaking the freewill. Comfort drawn from this sanctified flicker, one of its kind in the family, far surpasses similarly named warm meals or hot drinks.

In this glow I feel deeply connected to decades of family members I never met.  Joy-filled stories abound: celebrations around the family table, time wisely spent before a homestead Heaven Window, even WWII horrors, and communities resounding with sung, poetic, prayers from memory, not printed pages.  The mystical December Eve Star extends through icy January and beyond.  Eyes, neither glued to book nor ipad, are fixed on inspiring celestial light.

Yes, I was fortunate that Mama, Tata, Babcie (plural, including one I never met) filled their homes and punctuated daily troubles with harmonies wrought in angel choirs. Without the devices of ear buds, or remote control, loved ones opened personal discovery channels, passing on cherished seasonal favorites: daily life and lyrics set to a myriad of rhythms, tones, and emotions all keys to the soul.

Here lies the rediscovered, intensified light of the Thunder Candle.  Its power and brilliance melding with sweet, pure beeswax creates an environment of divine and human presence, akin to Native American smudging cedar and wild sage. Lighting this blessed, beeswax lamp is itself a prayer.

Family members I sorely miss, their humorous antics, arguments, chants beaming with passion, spirited-crystal-ring toasts, embraces, tears, complements and glances penetrating beyond the heart, at time angry words which set with the day’s sun, anoint my weary spirit. This is the power of winter’s waxen tower.

The December marketing calendar tempts expensive and superficial shoppers’ angst. Embracing heaven, however, happens only in celestial light, which descends on the 24^th night of the year’s last month. “God is born!” (Bóg się rodzi), overturning the “way we always did it,” calming human/heavenly discourse and polarizations, not to leave even after herders and the wise deem it “too long” (adapted from the above carol). Carols extend these candle-lit-weeks four, with meditations, never begging for a station break.

Divine refulgence fills the room, enlightening my shadowy icon of the Black Madonna and Child. Golden rays pierce the darkness as arrow and sword once slashed her cheeks, wounded her neck, and lanced her heart: “releasing many thoughts.”  God in the flesh comes closer to arthritic joints and disabled spirit as Mama brings in a giggling baby. Someone reflected this Christmas, “Talking to Baby Jesus is so different,” so intimate, so personal, like a Polish carol —the secure embrace of an angelic feather-bed comforter.

I pray your home be blessed with this heavenly wonder. Thousands of terrestrial bees, working among perfumed blossoms and radiant, spring sunbeams give us a gift. Blessing it, sweetens bitter curses, angry outbursts, scatters the darkness of wounded isolation, vivifies the paralyzed spirit, brings home the abused, judgement-wounded scapegoat. (The d)evil despises holy light, fleeing in terror. Allow the sanctified flame of the Thunder Candle in Mama Mary’s strong yet comforting hands, warm away frosted anxiety, melt razor sharp icicles and soften craggy, broken words pushing us away to hide in fear, worry, or hate.

I sincerely appreciate your desire to swim through this attempt to express the profound, mystical, enlightening, loving, waxen winter light beaming from Jesus’ hay-strewn cradle and brought close, to our side, by an “unwed” Mother’s and brave Nazareth Carpenter’s lamp. Go light a smile on your hallowed, thunderous candle. Hear sour complaints exit your mind’s sky and your ruminous horizon.

©  2020 CzMKrysa, Buffalo, NY 14206