God has His Say in Everything

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. Readings: Malachi 3:1–4; Hebrews 2:14–18; Luke 2:22–40

(The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, Fra Angelico, 1440-1442)

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Today’s feast marks the Presentation of the Lord Jesus in the Temple, forty days after he was born. As the firstborn, he belonged to God. According to the Law of Moses, Mary and Joseph were required to take him to the Temple and “redeem” him by paying five shekels or a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. At the same time, the Law required the child’s mother to offer sacrifice in order to overcome the ritual impurity brought about by childbirth.

I

What is fascinating and prominently make their presence felt in this Scripture passage are two elderly people, Simeon and prophetess Anna. Both came to the temple where Jesus would be presented because of the promptings of the Holy Sprit. Interestingly, both were looking for something extraordinary in their peak of life or in their ripe age.  Finally they meet whom for so long they had prayed, read in the prophetic writings and heard from their Rabbis.

The senior Simeon astonishes both the parents of Jesus, especially the mother, Mary. She would be coming to know here first sorrow among the seven sorrows mentioned in the Gospels.  This will be a source of deep pain for the Mother, something she will not realize fully until she sees him die in agony before her eyes.  Simeon's words must have been very puzzling and even alarming to Mary and Joseph. I suppose no mother would like to hear such bad futuristic thoughts about their child.

Every parent would like to know the future of the child, what this child would become; what it would accomplish, etc.?  Parents have dreams for their children. It is rightly to have dreams for one's offsprings.

II

Simeon also gives us a very challenging prayer, which we do everyday Compline, Night Prayer, in other words, whenever we recite "Nunc dimittis" from  the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke, verses 29 through 32, meaning "Now you dismiss".

"Now, Master, you let your servant go in peace. You have fulfilled your promise.

My own eyes have seen your salvation,

which you have prepared in the sight of all peoples.

A light to bring the Gentiles from darkness; the glory of your people Israel."

Both these elderly persons of the Lucan Gospel, Simeon and Anna remind us that God has His say in everything, even at the last moments of our life. It could be even when we have gone through rough sea's of life; in things which must have been really difficult and disappointing. Still we could give a chance to God to do his job for us. He will have his say and that would be the right one, promising one, and which we must have been waiting for so long.

III

The presence of Jesus must have been such an astonishing event in their long lives of Simeon and Anna. All the pain of being a widow, childless that she must must have been carrying on for more than 60 years of life must have vanished with that wink of seeing Jesus, the little baby in the arms his mother, Mary.

The presence of Jesus is must for every Christian where ever they are. The liturgy invites us to be the presence of Jesus in the world around us and to be able to recognize Jesus as revealed or made present by others.
Saint Teresa of Avila puts it so beautifully how and what it means to be the presence of Jesus in the world:

God of love, help us to remember 

That Christ has no body now on earth but ours 

No hands but ours, No feet but ours 

Ours are the eyes to see the needs of the world. 

Ours are the hands with which to bless everyone now. 

Ours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good.

And, to recognize Jesus made present by others, we perhaps need to, as Simeon and Anna did, rely on God’s grace.

- Olvin Veigas, SJ

02nd February 2020