What is the scene you picture when you pray the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary? The fourth Joyful Mystery is today’s Gospel, “The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.”
Luke 2:22-40 or Luke 2:39-40
Mark, the Gospel of this year, has no infancy narratives. The stories in Matthew (the Magi and flight into Egypt) and Luke (today’s story of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple) seem to be in opposition. Today’s story would have taken place 40 days after Jesus’ birth. The Feast of the Presentation is February 2 on our Roman calendar, 40 days after December 25. We do not know if Mary and Joseph went to Jerusalem before the Magi came or exactly what happened. Bethlehem was just five miles from Jerusalem, so it is reasonable to me, to make sense of the differences in narrative by having Mary and Joseph go up to Jerusalem 40 days after Jesus’ birth, then return to Bethlehem. The story in Matthew of the visit of the Magi says “upon entering THE HOUSE, they saw the child with Mary, his mother.”
Today’s Gospel says that after they left the temple that Mary and Joseph returned to Nazareth. They couldn’t have done that and have gone to Egypt until after Herod’s death. Different memories that circulated in the early church? Probably. Both true? Surely. How? We have to wait until we get to heaven to know the whole story.
For now, let’s look at today’s story.
Why did Mary and Joseph go to Jerusalem? Mosaic law required that every child “who opens the womb” be offered to God. The descriptions of this are in Leviticus and Numbers. If a child were born into a family of means, a year old lamb was to be offered. If the family was poor, two pigeons or turtledoves was an appropriate offering. Mary and Joseph were poor, so they offered the doves or pigeons.
Anna and Simeon
What is the scene in the temple like? How do you picture it? I picture Simeon and Anna as active people in their 80s. Scripture says that Anna was 84. Her marriage ended early, after seven years, and she spent her life in the temple, praying and fasting. Surely, she and Simeon knew each other. They each “kept watch” for the Messiah. Simeon, guided by the Holy Spirit, went to the temple the day that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus came. The Holy Spirit guided him to recognize that this child was THE CHRIST, the one whom he and Jewish history had been waiting for. He took the child in his arms, prophesied, and expressed his great gladness to God.
Then Anna saw Simeon’s joy as he held Jesus. She came over to see. The Holy Spirit guided her, too, as she realized the longing in her heart as she had prayed all these years had been fulfilled. Her joy spilled over, and she “spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.”
Taking Meaning from the Story
As an older lay woman, I take Anna for a model. In fact, I took her name at my Oblation at St. Meinrad, because I want to do what she did–spend my time around church, pray, offering hospitality and helpfulness. I have a wonderful picture of her holding the baby Jesus, painted by Jerry Bacik. At this time of the year, it is just across the living room from my prayer chair. When I pray the Presentation Mystery or just when I’m praying, I think, “What was it like to hold the baby Jesus?” I think of my own babies and grandbabies. There is a smell and a touch to a baby that gives an experience nothing else equals. To hold a baby who was God in the flesh—it must have been a joy beyond joy, for holding our ordinary children is such a joy.
Anna was a minister of hospitality, a contemplative, and an evangelist! How much better could growing old ever get than to spend my time doing that?
They Also Kept Watch
The shepherds kept watch of their flocks by night. It took angels in the sky to call them to see Jesus and his Holy Family. Shepherds were smelly outcasts, of the lowest rungs of the social ladder in Jewish culture at the time of Jesus birth. Yet, these “last” ones were the first ones, for Jesus came especially for the poor and the outcast. They can represent all the least ones today and through the centuries.
The Magi kept watch in their country far away. They had the education and observation to study and understand a star that thousands of people must have seen, but did not understand or follow. They used their wealth and position to keep watch and follow the star. They can represent the rich, the wise, the blessed in this life. Jesus came just as much for them as for the shepherds. They came with gifts, with adoration, with recognition of the importance of this child. He came for them as both Savior and opportunity to share the goodness God gave them.
Yet it seems to me that Anna and Simeon can represent ordinary faithful people. They too kept watch. God spoke to them through the Holy Spirit—quietly, personally. God worked no less of a miracle in having them simply be in the temple on the day Mary, Joseph, and Jesus came to fulfill the law and recognize Jesus as the one they had been watching for. Anna and Simeon represent us. Jesus came for us folks in the middle, too.
It strikes me today, that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus also represented those three populations. When they met the shepherds, they were so poor they had their baby in a stable, a barn. There was no room for them in any of the inns. Yet, how wonderfully God the Father took care of them. They had privacy, warmth from animals, a manger for a crib. The shepherds couldn’t have come to a crowded inn. It would have been very awkward to give birth there. In their extreme circumstances, God took care of them—while also joining them to the poor and the outcast.
When Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were visited by the Magi, they were in a house, comfortable enough, and the gifts of the Magi may well have been what gave them the financial means to escape to Egypt and/or to be seen by those they met as honorable, blessed, among the elite to have such things. They, too, were a Holy Family among the rich, educated, and politically important.
And, today, when Mary, Joseph, and Jesus met with Anna and Simeon in the temple, they were ordinary people meeting ordinary people.
Christ came for all. God the Father gave evidence of that at his birth. Jesus IS God-with-us—here on earth in the Incarnation, AND here on earth in being like, connecting with people across social strata. Jesus, the Christ, God-in-the-flesh, STILL meets us where we are.
And yes, to meet him we STILL must keep watch.
Prayer
O come let us adore him, O come let us adore him, O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! I have a new computer, and tonight Bill helped me use it to get back in the A Catholic Moment swing of things.
