PRESENTATION OF JESUS IN THE TEMPLE
GOSPEL: LK 2:22–40 (OR 2:22–32)
Dear friends,
Forty days after Christmas, we celebrate the Lord who enters the Temple and comes to encounter his people. This Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple is also known as the Feast of the Encounter. It is the encounter between God, who became a child to bring newness to our world, and an expectant humanity, represented by the elderly man and woman in the Temple.
In the Temple, there is also an encounter between two couples: the young Mary and Joseph, and the elderly Simeon and Anna. The old receive from the young, while the young draw upon the old. God’s promise does not come to fulfillment merely in individuals, once for all, but within a community.
In this encounter, the young see their mission and the elderly realize their dreams. All because, at the center of the encounter, is Jesus. He is at the center. He moves everything, he draws us to the Temple, to the Church, to the house of his father, where we can meet him, recognize him, welcome him and embrace him.
How good it is for us to hold the Lord “in our arms” (Lk 2:28), like Simeon. Not only in our heads and in our hearts but also “in our hands”, in all that we do: in prayer, at work, at the table, on the telephone, at school, with the poor, everywhere. The Mother of God, the purest Virgin, carried the true light in her arms and brought him to those who lay in darkness: the neglected, the needy and the poor children waiting to be sponsored so as to see the light. CHRIST the true light has come and has shone upon a world enveloped in darkness. This, then, is our feast, let all of us, my brethren, be enlightened and made radiant by this light. Let all of us share in its splendor, and be so filled with it that no one remains in the darkness. Let us be shining ourselves as we go together to meet and to receive with the aged Simeon the light whose brilliance is eternal. We too should carry a light for all to see and reflect the radiance of the true light as we hasten to meet him and serve him among the poor and needy.
