February: Light in the Half-Dark
February sits in the in-between. Winter still holds the earth, but the light is slowly returning. Snowdrops appear like small promises in cold soil, Candlemas candles flicker in stone churches, and the year feels like it is quietly exhaling. This is a month of thresholds: not yet spring, no longer deep winter; and perhaps that is why the Church marks it with Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation.
At Candlemas, Mary and Joseph bring the Christ child to the Temple. An old man, Simeon, takes Him in his arms and calls Him “a light for revelation.” It is an ordinary scene: a young family, an ageing prophet, yet it shimmers with quiet glory. February invites us to see God in this kind of light: faint but steady, like a candle in a draughty chapel, persistent enough to guide us home.
We are not asked to bloom or hurry. Only to watch, and to carry the small light we have.
From the Earth
The land is soft and wet with rain; fields are patched with frost in the early morning and mud by afternoon. Trees are still bare, but buds have begun to tighten on their branches. In sheltered places, snowdrops and early catkins whisper that life is already stirring.
Lambing season begins in February in many parts of Britain. Ewes kneel in straw-filled barns, hooves press into cold ground, and new breath enters the world. Creation reminds us: renewal often arrives in small, fragile forms.
Those Who Went Before
St Brigid of Kildare (Feast: 1st February)
St Brigid stands where Irish Christianity and Celtic earthiness meet. Born in the 5th century, she became known for her generosity, her love of the poor, and her deep connection to creation: cows, fields, wild geese, and holy wells.
She founded a monastery at Kildare (meaning “church of the oak”), where prayer and craft, farming and hospitality were woven into a single life of faith. Legend says her cloak grew miraculously to cover all the land needed for a new monastery: a gentle image of how generosity stretches wider than we expect.
In a month balanced between darkness and spring, Brigid is a companion who teaches us to tend the small fire, to welcome the traveller, and to see the sacred in soil and hearth.
A Prayer in Action
Place a candle or small oil lamp in a quiet corner of your home: a windowsill, a bedside table, the kitchen sink where the washing-up waits. Light it once a day, perhaps at dawn or dusk, and pray simply:
“Christ, Light of the World, be my guiding flame in the stillness and in the waiting.”
Let it burn for a few minutes. No striving. Just presence.
““A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.””
