Homilies

February 2, 2008
Feast of the Presentation of the Lord
Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 2: 22-40
Fr. Justin Sheehan

"They will offer due sacrifice to the Lord", said the prophet Malachi in the first reading. "The parents of Jesus took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord", said St Luke in the Gospel for today. And when the parents of Jesus make their offering and present him to the Lord,Simeon sees the salvation "for all the peoples to see, a light for revelation to the Gentiles. This is St Luke's way of saying that in some way, all humanity is contained within this tiny being. All the efforts, all the sufferings, all the joys of Christ's body, the Church, are already present in principle in the Child who is presented in the Temple on this day. And Mary who is Mother of the Church, offers to the Father all the children who will be hers, "so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed". All our thoughts, then, and all our actions, should be the kind that Mary can present to the Lord.

If we are to become an offering welcomed by the Lord from the hands of Mary, then we will need solitude of heart. Our heart is a temple greater than the one at Jerusalem. We must be alone in this temple, with God there, and with Mary to present us. There should be a great silence there, and no distracting noises. If we are critical of other people,of what they do or even what they eat, or if we're constantly making comparisons of situations and people, then the temple of our heart is not quiet, and the offering of all we do cannot have its full effect. We should be free from all anxiety even in regard to ourselves. Certainly we should be sorry for our sins and do all we can to grow better every day, but the thought of our imperfections should never become a preoccupation. It's God we should be thinking about, more than ourselves. The best way to prepare ourselves to be offered in the temple by Mary is to concentrate on fulfilling God's will.

In many ways, the feast of the presentation is a kind of icon of the spiritual life. The spiritual life consists precisely in allowing ourselves to be offered up by the hands of Mary, so that we can be presented to the eternal Father. She had no need "for purification according to the Law of Moses", but we do need it, all of us, if we are to receive Jesus, the Light of the Father. When Mary went to the Temple, it was not for her own sake, but for ours, in our name, for the purification of all humanity, so that we in turn might receive Jesus.

This, finally, is the "offering to the Lord as it should be made", when Mary presents us to the Father. He gazes unceasingly at us, and we at him. When we live under his gaze, all that we do is lit up; everything becomes clearer and more transparent. We realize the brightness and the beauty of a life which is genuinely consecrated to God.

But also, we look at him, and it is his face we see, the Face of Love, and we are no longer afraid. We look at Jesus present in the host we are to receive, and we see with the eyes of faith that his gaze and ours meet, and merge in an eternal communion.