The Feast of the Presentation is a time of change: the changing from the Old Testament signified by Simeon and Anna fulfilled in the New which is Our Lord; the changing from Christmas to Lent (as we are in Septuagesima and tonight we change the a Marian antiphon at Compline.
Because of this, the Feast of the Presentation was believed to have predictive power regarding the changing of the seasons and the weather for the coming year. The weather on the Presentation was believed to foretell the coming years weather.
In the German lands, this came to be the belief that the way a hedgehog reacts to the weather on the Feast of the Presentation would foretell the coming year’s weather. When Germans came to America, they looked to the most populous large rodent in these lands: the groundhog.
Groundhog Day is Catholic and has its origins intimately tied to the Catholic folk practices used to celebrate the Feast of the Presentation. That being said, I hope today’s weather is not a predictor for the year to come.
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