Madagascar Edition
Dia de la Candelaria leads today's complete edition for Madagascar.
Daily Edition
Official observances, world days, local context, and everyday celebrations for people who need something worth reading, sharing, or talking about today.
The Virgin of Candelaria is venerated across northern Chile, especially in the mining towns where faith is the only thing stronger than the desert. Processions carry her through streets lined with copihues and copper dust. The miners pray to her before every shift and she has never let them down.
The Catholic community observes Candlemas with the blessing of candles and the procession of light. The candles are made from beeswax, and the bees of Madagascar produce some of the finest wax in the Indian Ocean. The candlelight procession is especially beautiful in the highland churches of Antananarivo and Antsirabe, where the churches are built of red brick and the candles glow against the stone. The tradition of Candlemas is a reminder that Madagascar is a country where Christianity and ancestral practice coexist without contradiction.
