February, the Dark Threshold

Madonna di Montevergine, ora pro nobis

February arrives stripped of illusions. The year is no longer new, but it has not yet learned how to endure. Light returns reluctantly, thin and colorless, as if purified by cold rather than welcomed by warmth.

Candlemas reflects this tension. Flame is held against encroaching shadow. The Purification of the Blessed Virgin reminds us that holiness advances quietly, through obedience and endurance. At Montevergine, Our Lady stands as a sovereign presence in the mountain mist, severe and maternal at once.

It is also the month of blood and memory. St. Valentine, reduced by modernity to sugar and sentiment, remains first and last a martyr, bearing witness that love is proved only through sacrifice. For me, February is sealed by a more personal reckoning, the month my father passed from this world, leaving silence where authority once stood.

February does not console. It purifies. It teaches that love, faith, and lineage endure only by passing through darkness without complaint.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, January 31st, Feast of Beata Maria Cristina di Savoia