Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC
The Presentation of Our Lord - February 2, 2020
Malachi 3:1-4
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40
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Today we celebrate the Feast of The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, which is also known as The Purification of St. Mary the Virgin, and also as Candlemas.
It is called The Purification after the Jewish ritual custom prescribed in the twelfth chapter of Leviticus, where the mother of a male child is commanded to undergo forty days of cleansing from the blood of childbirth and then to offer herself and her child at the temple with an offering.
Her purification is accompanied by the presentation of her child. The ritual itself is a consecration of both the mother and child’s lives to God, and the offering is a sign of thanksgiving and gratitude for safe delivery of the child and the continued health of the mother. If the parents were rich enough, they would offer a lamb. If they were too poor, they would offer two turtledoves or two pigeons, as Joseph and Mary did.
That the Feast is also called Candlemas originates with Simeon’s prophesy that the Christ Child would be a Light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of [God’s] people Israel. (Luke 2:32) Later Church tradition has this day as the Feast on which beeswax candles were blessed for use both in churches and in private homes throughout the year. And that is how we started our liturgy today.
The Presentation in the Temple closes Luke’s narrative of Jesus’ infancy. Luke’s telling of Jesus’ birth and early childhood contains three hymns that scholars believe predate the writing of the gospel itself.
Those three hymns are very familiar to those who pray Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer services of the Book of Common Prayer. They are also very dear to monastic communities who sing them in the Divine Office.
The Benedictus or Song of Zechariah features in our office of Matins. The Magnificat or Song of Mary features in our office of Vespers. And we sing the Nunc Dimitis or Song of Simeon every night in our office of Compline.
It is this third hymn which is featured in today’s gospel passage. Simeon’s hymn of praise to the baby Christ resonates in me as another Ode to Joy.
Simeon, nearing the grave, knowing that his time is short, trusting that the promise must be near, lives long enough to hold salvation in his arms and to look into the eyes of the one who will save not only Israel, but Gentiles as well - the whole world.
“... now you are dismissing your servant in peace,” At the end of the day, I sing this hoping that I can let go of any preoccupation, worry or anxiety I may have held during the day. Creation is in God’s hands not under my control. God is here with us all, with each of us, now and forever. Fret not and trust in the Lord.
“... for my eyes have seen your salvation,” Simeon says. At the end of the day, I sing this recognizing that God has been present and active in life all day, And, with luck, I recognized God in the face of my brothers, in the interactions with our guests, our staff, our contractors, our directees.
Simeon continues “... which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” At the end of the day, I sing this recognizing that the Christ cannot be but Universal. I rejoice that our salvation is corporate. We are being transformed together, if at varying paces. God saved us one and all and salvation continues, if we can but see with the eyes of our heart.
Near the end of my life, I hope I will be able to sing the Nunc Dimitis with a full-hearted gratitude for its unfolding and with hope for what is yet to come. “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, ...”
In the ordinariness of parents bringing their baby son to the temple for an offering, Simeon saw something greater - indeed the greatest gift of all. He is teaching us to wait and watch and see and praise. So let us use our spiritual practices wisely and faithfully and be watching and praising with Simeon - in our liturgies of hymns of the good news, in our own private prayer, in our acts of mercy in the world - all in the assurance that Christ comes and reveals himself to us - in ways we expect and ways that surprise, in the convenient and the inconvenient, in the knowable and in ways beyond knowing - yet Christ is through all and in all and with all.
Today’s feast has yet another name, which focuses not on why the Holy Family went to the Temple, but on what happened while they were there. In the Byzantine Rite, this feast is remembered as Hypapante—or, “the meeting”—a reference to the meeting of the Christ Child and his Mother Mary with holy Simeon and the prophet Anna.
Simeon, we’re told, “was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him.” Anna, “was of a great age [… and] never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day.” By my reckoning, Anna had been living a devout life in the Temple for a good sixty years.
Simeon and Anna can be conceived of as sort of “proto-monastics.” They live entirely devoted to God, in regular prayer and in constant hope for the fulfillment of Israel’s longing.
Anna and Simeon were living in light of their ultimate hope. And so it’s not surprising that they, of everyone present in the crowded Temple that day — these proto-monastics — noticed an unnoticeable couple with their infant, coming to offer two turtle doves, the offering appointed for the poor. Anna and Simeon had cultivated a different way of seeing.
We are no longer called with Anna and Simeon to simply live in hope of Christ, to live in Advent, as it were. But rather we are called to live in Epiphany, in Christ revealed among us, also in us and through us.
In the First Coming of Christ, recognized by Anna and Simeon, the eschaton, our telos, our goal, our end, arrives as a Person, as one embodying that final fulfillment.
Some, including Teilhard de Chardin, foresee that the eschaton will arrive, not as an individual Person but as a Community, a collective Person — as the fullness of the ever-growing Body of Christ as it comes into being through the whole of the human family.
However, we cannot mother the growing Christ and escape the sword that will pierce our soul, as Simeon prophesies to Mary. As we open ourselves to Christ’s growing presence in creation and in community, with Mary we will feel the pain of Christ, as he struggles to come into form through each of us. Our hearts will become sensitive to the human, animal, and ecological suffering that surrounds us. Our mercy will be as wide as God’s mercy. Our love will be as encompassing God’s Love.
And along this path of organic growth of the Universal Christ, we monks will continue to sing the three hymns of Luke’s infancy narrative to remember the revolutionary message of God’s love and justice for all.
As St. Augustine wrote in his commentary on Psalm 73: “Qui bene cantat bis orat.” Who sings well, prays twice.
Amen.
It is called The Purification after the Jewish ritual custom prescribed in the twelfth chapter of Leviticus, where the mother of a male child is commanded to undergo forty days of cleansing from the blood of childbirth and then to offer herself and her child at the temple with an offering.
Her purification is accompanied by the presentation of her child. The ritual itself is a consecration of both the mother and child’s lives to God, and the offering is a sign of thanksgiving and gratitude for safe delivery of the child and the continued health of the mother. If the parents were rich enough, they would offer a lamb. If they were too poor, they would offer two turtledoves or two pigeons, as Joseph and Mary did.
That the Feast is also called Candlemas originates with Simeon’s prophesy that the Christ Child would be a Light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of [God’s] people Israel. (Luke 2:32) Later Church tradition has this day as the Feast on which beeswax candles were blessed for use both in churches and in private homes throughout the year. And that is how we started our liturgy today.
The Presentation in the Temple closes Luke’s narrative of Jesus’ infancy. Luke’s telling of Jesus’ birth and early childhood contains three hymns that scholars believe predate the writing of the gospel itself.
Those three hymns are very familiar to those who pray Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer services of the Book of Common Prayer. They are also very dear to monastic communities who sing them in the Divine Office.
The Benedictus or Song of Zechariah features in our office of Matins. The Magnificat or Song of Mary features in our office of Vespers. And we sing the Nunc Dimitis or Song of Simeon every night in our office of Compline.
It is this third hymn which is featured in today’s gospel passage. Simeon’s hymn of praise to the baby Christ resonates in me as another Ode to Joy.
Simeon, nearing the grave, knowing that his time is short, trusting that the promise must be near, lives long enough to hold salvation in his arms and to look into the eyes of the one who will save not only Israel, but Gentiles as well - the whole world.
"Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,Let's consider the words of the Nunc Dimittis itself.
according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel."
“... now you are dismissing your servant in peace,” At the end of the day, I sing this hoping that I can let go of any preoccupation, worry or anxiety I may have held during the day. Creation is in God’s hands not under my control. God is here with us all, with each of us, now and forever. Fret not and trust in the Lord.
“... for my eyes have seen your salvation,” Simeon says. At the end of the day, I sing this recognizing that God has been present and active in life all day, And, with luck, I recognized God in the face of my brothers, in the interactions with our guests, our staff, our contractors, our directees.
Simeon continues “... which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” At the end of the day, I sing this recognizing that the Christ cannot be but Universal. I rejoice that our salvation is corporate. We are being transformed together, if at varying paces. God saved us one and all and salvation continues, if we can but see with the eyes of our heart.
Near the end of my life, I hope I will be able to sing the Nunc Dimitis with a full-hearted gratitude for its unfolding and with hope for what is yet to come. “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, ...”
In the ordinariness of parents bringing their baby son to the temple for an offering, Simeon saw something greater - indeed the greatest gift of all. He is teaching us to wait and watch and see and praise. So let us use our spiritual practices wisely and faithfully and be watching and praising with Simeon - in our liturgies of hymns of the good news, in our own private prayer, in our acts of mercy in the world - all in the assurance that Christ comes and reveals himself to us - in ways we expect and ways that surprise, in the convenient and the inconvenient, in the knowable and in ways beyond knowing - yet Christ is through all and in all and with all.
Today’s feast has yet another name, which focuses not on why the Holy Family went to the Temple, but on what happened while they were there. In the Byzantine Rite, this feast is remembered as Hypapante—or, “the meeting”—a reference to the meeting of the Christ Child and his Mother Mary with holy Simeon and the prophet Anna.
Simeon, we’re told, “was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him.” Anna, “was of a great age [… and] never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day.” By my reckoning, Anna had been living a devout life in the Temple for a good sixty years.
Simeon and Anna can be conceived of as sort of “proto-monastics.” They live entirely devoted to God, in regular prayer and in constant hope for the fulfillment of Israel’s longing.
Anna and Simeon were living in light of their ultimate hope. And so it’s not surprising that they, of everyone present in the crowded Temple that day — these proto-monastics — noticed an unnoticeable couple with their infant, coming to offer two turtle doves, the offering appointed for the poor. Anna and Simeon had cultivated a different way of seeing.
We are no longer called with Anna and Simeon to simply live in hope of Christ, to live in Advent, as it were. But rather we are called to live in Epiphany, in Christ revealed among us, also in us and through us.
In the First Coming of Christ, recognized by Anna and Simeon, the eschaton, our telos, our goal, our end, arrives as a Person, as one embodying that final fulfillment.
Some, including Teilhard de Chardin, foresee that the eschaton will arrive, not as an individual Person but as a Community, a collective Person — as the fullness of the ever-growing Body of Christ as it comes into being through the whole of the human family.
However, we cannot mother the growing Christ and escape the sword that will pierce our soul, as Simeon prophesies to Mary. As we open ourselves to Christ’s growing presence in creation and in community, with Mary we will feel the pain of Christ, as he struggles to come into form through each of us. Our hearts will become sensitive to the human, animal, and ecological suffering that surrounds us. Our mercy will be as wide as God’s mercy. Our love will be as encompassing God’s Love.
And along this path of organic growth of the Universal Christ, we monks will continue to sing the three hymns of Luke’s infancy narrative to remember the revolutionary message of God’s love and justice for all.
As St. Augustine wrote in his commentary on Psalm 73: “Qui bene cantat bis orat.” Who sings well, prays twice.
Amen.
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