A Total Offering

Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Presentation, when Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem so that He could be “consecrated to the Lord” (Luke 2:23). So it is fitting that Saint John Paul II started the tradition of celebrating the World Day of Consecrated Life on this feast.

In his message for the first celebration in 1997, the late Holy Father noted three different reasons for establishing a World Day of Consecrated Life. The first purpose is to thank the Lord for the gift of consecrated life, which enriches the Christian community in many ways. The second is to “promote a knowledge of and esteem for the consecrated life by the entire People of God,” and in this way draw men and women to discern a call to the consecrated life.

The third is for consecrated persons themselves, so that they might be affirmed in their vocation. This is important, for, as St. John Paul II says:

…there is great urgency that the consecrated life show itself ever more “full of joy and of the Holy Spirit,” that it forge ahead dynamically in the paths of mission, that it be backed up by the strength of lived witness, because “modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses” (Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi 41).

Consecrated men and women offer everything to the Lord, and that is why we celebrate them on this feast. The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple is “an eloquent icon of the total offering of one’s life,” John Paul II writes, for it is at this moment that the “cause and model of all consecration in the Church” is offered up.

In this Year of Consecrated Life, let us pray for those men and women who have set out to live perfect charity through poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Greeting The Awaited One

Lumen ad revelationem gentium! “Light for revelation to the Gentiles” (Lk 2:32).

These words resound in the temple of Jerusalem, as 40 days after the birth of Jesus, Mary and Joseph prepare to “present him to the Lord” (Lk 2:22). By emphasizing the contrast between the modest, humble action of the two parents and the glory of the event as perceived by Simeon and Anna, the Evangelist Luke apparently wants to suggest that the temple itself is waiting for the Child’s coming. In fact, in the prophetic attitude of the two elderly people, the entire Old Covenant expresses the joy of the meeting with the Redeemer.

Simeon and Anna go to the temple both longing for the Messiah, both inspired by the Holy Spirit, as Mary and Joseph take Jesus there in obedience to the precepts of the law. At the sight of the Child, they sense that it is truly he, the Awaited One, and Simeon, as if in ecstasy, proclaims: “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation which your have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Lk 2:29-32).

Lumen ad revelationem gentium!

With his inspired words, Simeon, a man of the Old Covenant, a man of the temple of Jerusalem, expresses his conviction that this Light is meant not only for Israel, but also for pagans and all the peoples of the earth. With him, the “aged” world receives in its arms the splendor of God’s eternal “youth.” However, the shadow of the Cross already looms in the background, because the darkness will reject that Light. Indeed, turning to Mary, Simeon prophesies: “This child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed” (Lk 2:34-35).

-Blessed John Paul II, The Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, 1998

My Eyes Have Seen Your Salvation

Simeon and Anna go to the temple both longing for the Messiah, both inspired by the Holy Spirit, as Mary and Joseph take Jesus there in obedience to the precepts of the law. At the sight of the Child, they sense that it is truly he, the Awaited One, and Simeon, as if in ecstasy, proclaims: “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation which your have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Lk 2:29-32).

-Blessed John Paul II, Homily for the Presentation of the Jesus in the Temple, 1998

The Fourth Joyful Mystery: The Presentation in the Temple

And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, 'Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord') and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, 'a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons’ (Lk 2:21-24).

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "Jesus' circumcision, on the eighth day after his birth, is the sign of his incorporation into Abraham's descendants, into the people of the covenant. It is the sign of his submission to the Law" (CCC, 527). And in this submission to the Law, He fulfills it!

While meditating on the Presentation, say one Our Father, 10 Hail Mary’s, and a Glory Be.