By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
We will be celebrating the Feast of the Presentation on February 2, a commemoration of the occasion when our Lady and St. Joseph took the Child Jesus up to the Temple forty days after His birth on Christmas day. The presentation of the firstborn child in the family was commanded in the Law, and was meant to be a reminder for the Jewish people that their ancestors had been delivered by God from slavery in Egypt.
In contrast, the firstborn of the Egyptians had been killed as a punishment for the treatment, at the hands of Pharaoh, of the Israelites (Exodus 12: 29-30). In addition there was a requirement that the firstborn child should be redeemed at a price of five shekels of silver (Numb. 18:15-16).
During Advent, we spent four weeks in preparing for Christmas, and traditionally these weeks were seen as representing the four thousand years which elapsed between the creation of the world and the birth of Christ. This time of preparation was then followed by the celebration of Christmastide — which traditionally went on until the Feast of the Presentation, a period of forty days.
This is also the case with the way in which the forty days of Lent are followed by the longer period of celebration over Eastertide. One of the ideas behind this more extended period of celebration was to give time for the faithful to meditate on the great mysteries that were taking place during the season in question. So during Christmastide, this was assisted by having an octave for Christmas Day, so that in effect the feast day was extended to a whole week.
This is still the case for Christmas Day, and was formerly true for the Feast of the Epiphany or Manifestation of Christ to the Magi, which we celebrated on January 6. This also had its octave, but unfortunately, with the more modern liturgical calendar, which sees the end of Christmastide on the Feast of the Baptism of Christ, this has now, regrettably, been lost.
To return to the Feast of the Presentation, this was formerly known as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin since the Jewish Law required that after giving birth every woman had to be purified (Lev. 12:2-8), as St. Luke tells us:
“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’” (Luke 2:22-24).
Clearly the Blessed Virgin, unlike all other women, was sinless, and so did not need to undergo this ceremony of purification, and even more so was this the case with paying a price in shekels for the Christ Child’s redemption. But as a sign of their great humility, Jesus and Mary submitted to this as the will of God. They also did this because it was expedient that the miraculous conception and birth of Christ should be kept secret; and so it was necessary that both Jesus and Mary should conform to the Law.
As part of the ceremony, the parents were required to bring a lamb as a sacrificial burnt offering. But Mary and Joseph were evidently too poor to afford this, and so had to be content with offering the turtledoves or pigeons as a sin offering — although in fact it was they who were actually bringing the true “Lamb of God” to the Temple in the person of the Child Jesus. At the same time, our Lady was the true and new Ark of the Covenant, who had carried Him, the God-Man, in her womb for nine months.
We can picture the Holy Family as they went up to the Temple — our Lady holding her baby in her arms, while St. Joseph carried the birds. St. Luke, though, does not describe the ceremonial they went through, but focuses rather on their meeting with the old man Simeon. He is described as “righteous and devout,” and we are told that he was “looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.” St. Luke also says that, “it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ” (Luke 2:25-26).
A Sword Of Sorrow
Simeon then, when he saw the Holy Family in the Temple precincts, by the illumination of the Holy Spirit recognized Him as the long-awaited Messiah, the Christ. His words to Mary, though, were not all comforting, since he foretold that the Child would be a sign of contradiction for the people of Israel, and that a sword of sorrow would pierce her soul. So even during the Christmas season we are invited to look forward to the sufferings the Blessed Virgin would endure during the crucifixion (Luke 2:27-35).
During His public ministry, Jesus proclaimed that He was the “Light of the World,” and also said that “he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). As a sign of this, this feast is also known as Candlemas, a name which comes from the fact that candles are blessed and distributed at Mass on this feast day. This probably arose, in ancient Rome, as a Christian ceremony to replace an ancient pagan festival during which lighted torches were carried through the city.
When Simeon took the Child Jesus in his arms, he gave thanks to God that he had now seen the salvation prepared for all peoples, a salvation which would be a “light of revelation to the Gentiles.” And so he was looking forward to the great expansion of the Church around the globe, amongst the Gentile nations, when Christ and His teaching would indeed become a great light for the world (Luke 2:28-32).
In blessing the candles, the priest prays that they will become symbols of the Christian journey toward the eternal light, the light of glory. These candles are a source of blessing for those who keep them, and traditionally they were lit near the beds of people who were dying. This was as a means of ensuring the heavenly protection and light needed at that most critical time, as opposed to the diabolical darkness of the Devil.
And so, as we have seen, Christmas began with the Christ Child in the arms of our Lady on Christmas Day, and she was also the one who showed Him to the shepherds and the Magi. And then on the occasion of His Presentation in the Temple, the traditional end of Christmastide, she once again held Jesus in her arms, before handing him to Simeon.
The lesson of all this is that if we stay close to our Lady, she will ensure that we stay close to Jesus, the light of the world, despite any difficulties we may have to face in life.
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