The Presentation of the Lord

02-02-2020Weekly ReflectionFather Prince Raja

Today we are celebrating the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord and the feast of Purification of our Lady in the Temple at Jerusalem. Their offering was later to find complete and perfect fulfillment in the mystery of the passion, death and Resurrection of the Lord. The liturgy of the day opens with the blessing to meet Christ and to recognize him "in the breaking of the bread" until he comes again in glory. Today is also the day of consecrated life which necessarily passes through participation in the cross of Christ. This is how it seeks out Mary Most Holy. Hers is the suffering of the heart that is one with the Heart of the Son of God, pierced by love. This feast proclaims Christ as the Light of the World.

Today's feast commemorates the presentation of the Infant Jesus by Joseph and Mary to God in His Temple in Jerusalem. This reminds us that the Christmas stories about Jesus in Luke come to an end today forty days after Christmas with the celebration of the Presentation of Jesus in the temple. The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord is a combined feast, commemorating the Jewish practice of the purification of the mother after childbirth and the presentation of the child to God in the Temple.

An ancient tradition says that a child is never given to parents by God, only lent to them. This tradition helps us appreciate better the spirit of God's instruction to Moses: "Dedicate all the first-born males to me" (Ex 13:2). Jews carried out God's instruction with a rite called presentation.

While Jesus was at the Temple for this rite, we are introduced in today's Gospel to a couple of characters who have been waiting for a long time for a promise to be fulfilled. When they see the Child, Anna and Simeon announce to everyone they see that He is the fulfillment of God's promise to humanity.

Simeon and Anna waited long years for fulfillment of that promise and their waiting was not in vain. In today's feast of the Presentation we recall how Mary and Joseph came into the temple carrying God in the shape of a helpless child to be 'presented in the temple' and how Simeon taking the child in his arms blessed God saying, "Now, Master, you can let your servant go in peace, just as you promised, because my eyes have seen thy salvation" (Lk 2:29-30). During those years of waiting, how often Simeon and Anna must have been tempted to think that things would never change and to despair that God's promises would never come true! But they never yielded to that kind of temptation. We too like Simeon and Anna wait for the fulfillment of the promises God made at the birth of his Son. God will choose his own time to make his promise come true in our lives. We should wait patiently for their fulfillment.

May the hope that is grounded in our faith inspire us to continue to trust that peace in the world and in our land can be ours if we consent, like Mary, to greater obedience to the will of the Father.

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