February’s festivals

At the Filey Mothers’ Union meeting on February 1 the group welcomed the Rev David Pynn who lead the service. Armed with his trusty keyboard he led everyone in a selection of hymns and based his theme on ‘love’ as we were nearing St Valentine’s Day. We discovered that apart from being the patron saint of lovers St Valentine is also the patron saint of bee keepers too.

Readings were from 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verses 1-10 and 1 John chapter 4 verses 7-12. It’s always a pleasure to welcome the Rev David and we look forward to asking him back again next year.

The meeting on February 15 was also linked to love. Susanne Garnett gave a talk about the various saints days and festivals in February. We started with Candlemas when Jesus was presented at the temple. Candles were central to everyone’s lives in days before electricity and Susanne bought some candles that she and her son are making to sell for the charities she supports (World Development Organisation).

February is a month when we start looking forward to spring and many of the church’s festival dates were chosen to link with festivals that people were already celebrating.

Snowdrops and white flowers in February bring the new year into focus for pagans as well as Christians. St Bridget was very famous in Ireland as well as Hungary and her feast day is in February. She lived in 451AD her father was an Irish druid but it is thought her mother may have been a Christian. Bridget decided she did not want to get married and wanted to open two monasteries, one for men and one for women.

God nail was another female Irish saint whose festival is on February 11 and is patron saint of bees and honey. St Valentine of course is on February 14 and was the next saint Susanne talked about, apparently this saint day is now no longer recognised by the Roman Catholics.

The next festival is shrove Tuesday, a day of carnivals in Spain and South America, a day to parade and a last chance to celebrate before giving things up for Lent, we do it with pancakes. However, pancakes were made 1,000 years before Jesus as a symbol of the sun coming up, so another festival in a way stolen from pagans although our reasoning is to use up the ingredients that wouldn’t be eaten during Lent.

Two informative and enjoyable meetings this month.

The next meeting on March 1 will be a service led by members of the committee including a sing along. On March 15 Catherine Welch will be speaking about hidden Filey. There is another service on April 5 and on April 19 we hope to have Scarborough Street Angels to talk to us.