Feast of the Presentation of the Lord
Reflection
When we have an infant Baptism at my parish, it is always a joyous occasion. I love to watch the parents, grandparents, extended family, and the entire congregation welcome the baby, this new member of our parish community.
And there was joy when Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem too! They went to perform the traditional Jewish rituals after a child is born, to present Jesus to God. In today’s Gospel, we hear that Simeon, an old man who is described as righteous and devout, was moved by the Holy Spirit to come into the temple courts when Jesus was there. He took Jesus in his arms, blessed Him, and joyfully praised God, prophesying that Jesus is the living embodiment of God’s consolation and redemption. And then another old person approaches, the prophet Anna, a widow who “never left the temple, but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer.” She too joyfully praises God for the gift of Jesus to this world.
Because of Simeon and Anna’s close union with God, they recognized Jesus when they met him. In his classic book “The Prophets”, Rabbi Abraham Heschel describes a prophet’s relationship with God:
“The God of the prophets is not the Wholly Other, a strange, weird uncanny Being shrouded in unfathomable darkness, but the God of the covenant, Whose will they know and are called upon to convey. The God they proclaim is not the Remote One, but the One Who is involved, near, and concerned.”
Prophets see things as God sees them, and love as God does: involved, near, and concerned. It is as if they have had a peek into the very heart of God; and having experienced this, they cannot keep quiet, even when their speaking causes people to perceive them as naïve, deranged, hyperbolic, or impractical. Because they challenge us as individuals to see the bigger picture, and because they often challenge the norms of the dominant culture, prophets suffer more than misunderstandings. As we know, they are sometimes persecuted and even lose their lives.
Today we pray to the Holy Spirit for the gift of prophecy; so, like Simeon and Anna we will recognize Jesus as He presents Himself to us: in the people and events of our lives and our world. We pray for eyes to see, and hearts to understand the signs of our times as God sees them. We pray for the courage to prophetically speak up and act when we see injustice that offends the heart of God.
