Easter is early so Lent is upon us almost before the last of the Christmas chocolate cherry liqueurs disappear ‘down the little red lane’. We turn from crib to cross at the last great feast of the Incarnation: Candlemas, or Presentation, or Purification.

Simeon holds the child and says ‘this is enough, I need no more’. Ich habe genug—if you have not heard Bach’s Cantata of the same name, it’s not too late. Find the first movement on YouTube here sung by the glorious Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

The old man carried the child, but the child governs the old man: you might reflect on how spot-on that is psychologically. The child is the father of the man. We are governed by thought patterns laid down in childhood. Childhood innocence, willingness to explore and ability to have fun are, as we grow up, so easily perverted by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that life throws at us. The supermarket trolley of the psyche becomes more and more wayward, and less and less inclined to head for the target we once thought we were aiming for.

We need the 3Rs: repent, recall and recover the childlikeness we’ve lost. Is the child you once were proud of the adult you have become? Examining that question is worth the Lenten discipline of spiritual spring-cleaning. If the answer is no (and I doubt that anyone can truthfully answer otherwise), what are you going to do about it?

The Orthodox call this great festival The Meeting – Simeon meets the infant that changes everything. We meet again the child we once were in order to change what we are. We are changed by encounters.