Are all our holidays rooted in some sort of Catholicism?
"Its origins actually rest in the hands of Christians in celebration of The Feast of Candlemas. German settlers of the Pennsylvania area brought the tradition of predicting the length of winter via hedgehog across the ocean. Groundhogs were so common to the area they settled in, that they eventually started
to consult what we can only assume to be Punxsutawney Phil’s ancestors.
In Germany, candles were distributed in the wintertime, and blessed by clergy on Candlemas Day. The celebration, also referred to as the Feast of Christ’s Presentation in the Temple, is symbolically associated with a special blessing of candles to represent Simeon’s proclamation of Jesus as “the light of the Gentiles.” Luke 2:32.
Daniel Lattierwrites that, “it commemorates the day when 40 days after his birth, according to Jewish custom, Jesus Christ would have been brought to the Jerusalem Temple so that his mother could be ritually purified and he offered to God.”
How did this religious commemoration become a staple of weather forecasting?.... The Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs, states, “Popular belief claims that bad weather and cloudy skies of February 2 mean an early and prosperous summer. If the sun shines through the greater part of Candlemas Day, there will be forty more day of snow.”
Time reported that, “In 1886, the Punxsutawney Spirit newspaper printed the first news of a Groundhog Day observance.” CH
"Its origins actually rest in the hands of Christians in celebration of The Feast of Candlemas. German settlers of the Pennsylvania area brought the tradition of predicting the length of winter via hedgehog across the ocean. Groundhogs were so common to the area they settled in, that they eventually started
In Germany, candles were distributed in the wintertime, and blessed by clergy on Candlemas Day. The celebration, also referred to as the Feast of Christ’s Presentation in the Temple, is symbolically associated with a special blessing of candles to represent Simeon’s proclamation of Jesus as “the light of the Gentiles.” Luke 2:32.
Daniel Lattierwrites that, “it commemorates the day when 40 days after his birth, according to Jewish custom, Jesus Christ would have been brought to the Jerusalem Temple so that his mother could be ritually purified and he offered to God.”
How did this religious commemoration become a staple of weather forecasting?.... The Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs, states, “Popular belief claims that bad weather and cloudy skies of February 2 mean an early and prosperous summer. If the sun shines through the greater part of Candlemas Day, there will be forty more day of snow.”
Time reported that, “In 1886, the Punxsutawney Spirit newspaper printed the first news of a Groundhog Day observance.” CH
