Presentation, Year B - February 2, 2024

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Josep Martinez-Cubero

The Presentation of Our Lord, February 2, 2024

• Malachi 3:1-4
• Hebrews 2:14-18
• Luke 2:22-40

Click here for an audio of the sermon

 

Our Brother Edwin left on Wednesday to return to our community in South Africa where he lives. We miss him already. Before he left, he needed a big suitcase to put things he was taking, and sacristy things we were sending with him, and so on. On Monday, I told him: “Don’t worry, we have many suitcases around here, and I’m sure there is a big one somewhere upstairs that you can take. Let’s meet at 6 and I’ll help you look for one.” Upstairs… The monastic enclosure has three levels. There are cells on the second floor and on the third floor. My cell in on the second floor, and I think it is in a very nice neighborhood. It is a different world upstairs on the third floor. So, up I went to meet Edwin to find a suitcase. Darkness! “Why is it so dark up here?”, I asked Edwin, who was using the flashlight on his phone. He said: “I don’t think they like to use lights up here. It’s always very dark, so I use the light on my phone.” “What? But that’s ridiculous.” I replied (and I don’t remember thinking that I was being judgmental or critical.) “That’s what the hallway lights are for, so you can see where you’re walking when it’s dark.” “That’s OK”, Edwin said, “I can hold the phone for both of us.” “No”, said I, in a flare-up of righteous indignation. “I’m turning on the lights.” I went around switching on the lights. We found the perfect suitcase for Edwin. I returned to the second floor, to my very nice neighborhood to realize that we, too, downstairs, keep the hallway lights off.

Now, this is not a reflection on how we tend to find faults elsewhere before we find them where we are, although it could be. But it is about how we take light so much for granted. All we have to do is to flip on the switch, or use the flashlight on our phone, or turn on the knob on the lamp. We have light at our disposal anytime we want it. Here at the monastery, depending on where one is in the building, if the electricity goes out, one may not even notice because the generator kicks on and lights stay on.

Being in the dark can make us feel helpless and terrified. Being in the light makes us feel safe and in control because we can see. So light is an important image in the Gospels. An angel comes to shepherds by night announcing the birth of Jesus, and the Glory of God shines around them. In the Gospel of Matthew magi follow the light of a star to find where Jesus has been born. The Gospel of John speaks of the Word made flesh as the light of all people, that shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. And in today’s Gospel lesson, Simeon takes the baby Jesus in his arms and praising God says of him that he is a light for revelation to the gentiles and for glory to God’s people.

Although we take light for granted, it is still an incredibly strong metaphor for our relationship with Christ because, think about it, as much as we say we want to receive the light of Christ, sometimes we decide to just turn that switch off. Sometimes I want Christ to be a dim little light for ambiance and that’s it. As much as I desire to have the light of Christ shine on me, I resist it because, you know, light reveals, and it may show parts of me that I’m not so happy with, and I’m not so sure I want people to see, thank you very much. But the light that is Christ wants to shine on me and on you, and to say: “It is OK. I already know every single thing about you, and I love you just the way you are. If you don’t see these parts of you, if you hide them, and avoid them, you will never be able to work on them. Now, have hope. Take courage. Keep working to be whole. Transformation can be a pain, but I am always with you.”

There is a old tale in a book called The Different Drum by M. Scott Peck that has always stayed with me. I read the book a very long time ago and couldn’t find it recently, so this is my version of the story according to what I remember of it.

There was once a monastery with a thriving and vibrant community. Their skin balms and salves were very famous, and they sold lots of them. Many people visited the monastery for wisdom and spiritual advice. But as time wore on, fewer and fewer people visited. For some reason fewer people turned to the monastery for advice. Even the sale of their famous balms and salves began to dwindle. The abbot began to spend many sleepless nights worrying about his community and wondering what they should do. He prayed and prayed, but the monks became more and more depressed. Soon the buildings of the monastery started showing signs of their depression. The monastery became shabby and untidy.

Now, the abbot knew of a very wise Jewish rabbi who lived not too far away from the monastery. He decided to go visit him and to ask for his advice. The rabbi showed him great hospitality and they visited for a very long time. They talked about their respective religions and shared all manner of spiritual insights with each other. The abbot explained his problem to the rabbi and asked for advice, but the rabbi only shook his head and smiled. As the dejected and disappointed abbot departed, the rabbi suddenly stood up and shouted after him, “Ah, but have hope, take courage for Christ lives among you!” All the way home the abbot pondered the rabbi’s words, “Christ lives among us? What? Like, Christ lives in the monastery?” The abbot knew all the monks very well, and he also knew he himself wasn’t Christ.

When he got back to the monastery the abbot shared the rabbi’s words with one of his brothers… who went and told another brother… who was overheard telling another brother. Soon the entire community had heard the news. “Christ lives among us!” “Who do you suppose he could be?” As each brother speculated on who the Christ could be, his view of his brothers began to change. They began to treat one another with greater respect, humility and love because what if he was dealing with Christ? Soon the entire community was doing everything with great reverence and joy and treating one another as if the other person was Christ. They also started treating every single thing in the monastery as if it were a holy vessel of the altar. The monastery once again became tidy and clean and beautiful.

People in the neighboring town began to notice the change that had come over the monastic community. The quirky monks all of a sudden looked radiant to everybody, shining like the sun. People once again flocked to the monastery and were energized by the spirit of the brothers. The monastery still prospers today, and it is known as the monastery of the light because rumor has it that Christ lives there.

Have hope and take courage for Christ is always among us. May Christ’s light, enkindled in our hearts, shine forth in our lives. ¡Que así sea en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+
overflowing.

The Presentation, February 2, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Randy Greve, OHC

The Presentation - Thursday, February 2, 2023 

 

Malachi 3:1-4 

Hebrews 2:14-18 

Luke 2:22-40

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

 

Light and glory;  eyes seeing what no eyes have ever seen before.  The unveiling of the great genius, the surprise of God in human form - a vulnerable, needy baby.  Like our physical pupils, our spiritual eyes need time to adjust to the brightness.  Luke builds the anticipation - gets us hungry and ready.  The slow rumble rises to a crescendo of praise from angels, shepherds, all who hear.  Remember and wonder, Luke says, so that we may open and prepare our hearts for the great gift that is received if we believe in the ridiculous claim that God is acting and saving through this baby.  These first two chapters move with force as grand as the cosmos and tenderness as individual as a whispered “yes” to an angel.  The foretelling of the birth of John the Baptist, the annunciation to Mary, the visitation and Magnificat, the birth of John and the Benedictus before the birth of Jesus and all that follows.  Luke has us singing our way into the incarnation, the narrative functioning as the frame around the poetry, which is the kind of language at center stage in these first two chapters.  Today the trio is complete with the singing by Simeon of the Nunc Dimittis.

One theory is that the church had already preserved in the earliest liturgy these three songs which continue to be sung daily by millions, before Luke began his gospel account.  I hope that’s true. I imagine Luke with three scraps of papyrus and an emerging story of where they came from.  Perhaps he knew that these words were hot, burning coals which would set the world on fire.  He would like us to feel the force and shock of these songs as he did - “who are they talking about?”  And then Luke sets about writing.  The anticipation is already forming a new vision of the world in a general great reversal embodied in the Savior - the mighty cast down, the lowly lifted up, fear removed, enemies gone, darkness dispelled, strangers welcomed, the world set right.

    The recognition of salvation is already the gift of salvation itself.  When our eyes see, it is a jubilant and joyful affair.  It is also always at the same time seeing the unavoidable work of renunciation and defiance.  Systems, patterns, relationships, beliefs are the things in need of saving - saving means a change from injustice, violence, exploitation, hatred, and abuse to the vindication and victory of God in honorable and respectful mutuality and neighborliness.  In each of their songs, Mary, Zechariah, and Simeon unveil the nature and effect of the salvation that is coming.

    The day appointed in the Law for the ritual cleansing and offering begins in the ordinary way, but this is no ordinary baby.  Simeon will only, can only say these words once, to one child.  His song contains all the inspiration and hope of the gospel.  It uses the beautiful words that Luke will come to repeat; peace, salvation, light, glory.  As with the Magnificat and Benedictus, the Nunc Dimittis would have us dare join in the hope that God is now acting.  The vision, the dream of the way life could be fills us with the energetic desire to be a part of it.  What is offered as possible is greater than the status quo.  We are first inspired to change before we know much about what and how change will take place.  Now, in the temple,  Mary and Joseph are ready to ponder something more of the mystery of this child.  That is why Simeon is not finished after the Nunc Dimittis.  He blesses Mary and Joseph and the Baby, and, as if it is an afterthought, as if he thinks to himself, “Oh, right, one more little detail”, he ruins this tender and hopeful moment of joyful anticipation.  “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed - and a sword will pierce your own soul too”, he says to Mary.   This is Luke’s first foreshadowing that this salvation will not be as quick and painless as we want it to be.  As Joel Green says in his commentary on Luke, “thus we gain sight of an ominous cloud, the first explicit manifestation of the reality that God’s purpose will not be universally supported, and the first candid portent that the narrative to follow will be a story of conflict.”  What does mention of a sword, a weapon meant to harm or kill, doing in this tender scene of an innocent baby?

    Simeon here has subverted the obvious implication of sword-piercing and turned it into a paradox.  Salvation has not come in the form of vengeful wrath-enacting punishment on enemies. If that were the case, a real sword through not the soul, but the heart of Caesar or Herod or Pilate may be in order.  Indeed that was the popular messianic expectation - real power is the ability to wield violence and impose control. But Christ will not come as a rival to Caesar using the same understanding and means of domination.  Christ comes in love, not retribution, yet that love is experienced at times as a sword.
The metaphor of the sword is multi-faceted.  

While the theological reading of Simeon’s sword reference refers to the conflict around Jesus within Israel, there is more to hear from this symbol.  The spiritual reading points to an inner conflict within the heart of each person.  The letter to the Hebrews uses the image of a sword to speak about the voice of God that is a piercing of illusions, an intolerance of duplicity and inner falsehood.  “The word of God is something alive and active: it cuts more incisively than any two-edged sword: it can seek out the place where soul is divided from spirit, or joints from marrow; it can pass judgment on secret emotions and thoughts.” (Hebrews 4:12). This is not vengeful punishment, but the way love confronts the resistant and arrogant parts of us that isolate us from our deepest desire.  Simeon is speaking to Mary’s unique vocation of soul-piercing transformation, but for Luke she is the archetypal disciple, so Simeon is speaking not just to her, but to all of us.
 

Teresa of Avila tells a story of a kind of sword-piercing love of God in her autobiography.  An angel has visited, and she says,
“I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God.”

To be alive and awake, vulnerable and receptive is to be pierced - pierced by our sinfulness, pierced by God’s mercy and compassion, pierced by the needs of our neighbors, the pain and suffering of the world, its beauty and wonder.  Tumult and pain mingle and mix from within glory and light.

    Salvation is the entering into the sign of contradiction around us and within us.  Glory is being given eyes to see reality and hearts to sigh and groan as the piercing truth reveals our minds and hearts; lighting them up, revealing their secrets.  “A light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”  In his wonderful book, If Only We Could See: Mystical Vision and Social Transformation, Gary Commins writes,

“There are awakenings, openings, and epiphanies: a voice at midnight, calm in the kitchen, a piercing light, a penetrating darkness, a wrenching from our half-tied vision, and the most ordinary faith that enables us to see as clearly as the most profound mystical enlightenment.” Amen.

 

The Presentation of our Lord - February 2, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC

Presentation - Wednesday, February 2, 2022

Malachi 3:1-4

Hebrews 2:14-18

Luke 2:22-40

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

At the end of the fourth century, a woman named Egeria made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her journal gives a glimpse of liturgical life there. Among the celebrations she describes is the gala procession, forty days after Christmas, in honor of Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple, This feast, sometimes know as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary spread throughout the Western Church in the fifth and sixth centuries. The Eastern Church called it The Meeting. In the eighth century, Pope Sergius inaugurated a candlelight procession with the blessing and distribution of candles, giving the feast its popular name, Candlemas.

It’s not enough to simply celebrate Simeon receiving the child Jesus in his arms. If that’s all this feast is about, then we have bound it to a long-ago time and a faraway place, with not much to do with our lives. The truth of this story transcends its history. While there is historical truth to it, there is also a truth that is not limited by time and place. This is an archetypal experience that is happening in all times and places for all people. It is as much our story as it is Simeon’s.

Knowing more about Simeon can help us understand and claim it. Tradition says he was one of the seventy translators of the Septuagint, the Hebrew scriptures in Greek. That translation is supposed to have begun around the third century before Christ and was completed in the year 132 before Christ. One strand of the tradition says Simeon was 270 years old and blind when Jesus was presented in the temple. He had been promised that he would see the Messiah, the Christ. 270 years is a very long time to wait. It must certainly have required decades of hope, trust, expectation, and anticipation. 

We all know what it’s like to wait. We wait and hope for all sorts of things– waiting for life to change, for grief to go away, for a prayer to be answered, for healing, for joy, for forgiveness and reconciliation, for clarity, meaning, and purpose. We have all sorts of hopes and expectations that God is present and working in our lives and our world. Even when we can’t see or understand it, like Simeon, we show up and wait. Simeon continued to show up. He continued to be vigilant and attentive. He continued to trust the promise. Sometimes showing up is the most difficult thing we can do, and it takes all we have to be awake and vigilant, to live with hope and trust. Showing up is the means through which God fulfills the promise to Simeon and to us.

Ephrem of Edessa, a mystic and poet, described a deeper truth of this encounter in one of his poems: 

“Simeon, the priest, when he took Him up in his arms to present Him before God, understood that he was not presenting Him, but was himself being presented.”  Simeon thought he was waiting for the child to show up, but it was really Jesus waiting for Simeon to show up. Simeon thought he was presenting the child to God, but it was really the child presenting the faithful old man to God. 

For us the presentation of Jesus doesn’t happen in the Jerusalem temple but in the temple of our lives. It requires and happens amid waiting. It happens every time we show up to the reality of our lives. Those are the moments in our lives when our senses awaken and our seeing gives way to recognizing a deeper and more profound reality. They are the moments of presentation, of meeting, when divinity and humanity touch and are joined. That’s what this day is about. In those moments we catch a glimpse of what blind Simeon saw with the eyes of his heart. We’ve all had those moments, times when we’ve never wanted them to end. It wasn’t about time passing. It was about presence. We were fully present to the moment, acknowledging that all the pieces of our life made sense. It happens when we are immersed in what we are doing, when we lose all track of time because we’ve opened ourselves to the eternal. This is a moment of presentation, a moment of meeting with a presence greater than us. It seems as if that moment is presenting itself to us, but I think the truth is that we are being presented to the moment. God’s Spirit takes us to that place of meeting, which is greater than our physical senses can experience or understand. 

Behind the legalities of this event was longing. Jesus is brought to the temple, not as a passive baby but as the embodiment of God’s longing for humanity. There’s also the longing of the parents, Simeon, and Anna. This Feast is, at its core, a feast of longing, longings to know and be known. Longing is not an absence or emptiness waiting to be filled, but a presence and fullness waiting to be expressed. People don’t long for each other because they are apart but because they are in love. 

We are sometimes too quick to quench the longing, to satisfy the desire, keeping life superficial. Fear and ignorance can keep us blind to the truth of ourselves and our lives, through shame or guilt, sorrow, or confusion. Longing, if trusted and followed, always takes us to the temple, the place of meeting. It reveals the longing between humanity and divinity, that can only ever happen in relationship to God. This isn’t about gathering information or learning about God. This kind of knowing is of the heart not the intellect. It’s about the union that sets us free, the oneness that gives us peace, and the relationship that makes us whole. For this to happen we must live with and offer the fragility, vulnerability, and joy of an open and longing heart. That heart is the temple of meeting, the place where we find the Christ, who fills and frees us to go in peace just as God promised, making Simeon’s song our song.   

+Amen

 

The Presentation of our Lord - February 2, 2021

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Randall Greve, OHC

The Presentation of Our Lord - Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Malachi 3:1-4
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.

When I was a seminarian at Wycliffe College, one of my classmates was a woman in her twenties who was interested in monastic life and wanted to hear the story of my call and vocation.  I told her about my first visit to any monastery, Gethsemani Abbey, in 1991, and how, in retrospect, that visit began an interest and attraction that led ultimately to the Order.  “Isn’t it too bad that you wasted all that time when you knew you had a calling?”, she said.  I replied that those years were not wasted, but preparatory.  It was a long and often frustrating time, those years between 1991 and 2005, when I entered.  

The call was there, but I had to grow into it, give myself to it.  And that took time, and I was impatient.  I know that now, looking back, but there were times in the 90s when I did indeed think I was wasting time.  We only know we are being prepared for the main vocation of our lives after years pass and we look back.  In the moment, it can feel as if nothing much is happening, that the waiting is going nowhere.  In those years I knew there was something I was supposed to do, somewhere to be, and the quicker I figured that out, the quicker I could get on with living my actual life.  Anything before that, any life other than that, had to be unfaithful, squandered, frivolous.  We both, my friend and I, in different times and ways, were tempted by lust for the instant – that wanting to know and do, now - why wait, why waste time?

  

In the Gospel reading for the Presentation, Simeon and Anna build upon Luke’s unfolding of a beautiful story of waiting and hope, desire and fulfillment.  The Gospel of Luke is the Gospel of patience, longing, and the joy that bursts forth when the Savior appears – more compassionate than we could have imagined, more beautiful than we believed possible, more mysterious than makes us comfortable.  In his amazing book Symbol and Sacrament, Louis-Marie Chauvet, speaks of Luke as describing the “presence of the absence of Jesus”.  From the Visitation to Mary, a young woman from a small, insignificant village, to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we encounter the Christ whose manifestation is at first gentle, almost secret and unobtrusive.  In his ministry, Jesus can be heard and seen and touched, but never controlled, possessed, conjured.  He comes to the willing, the searching, even in disguise, and then disappears.  Luke’s is the spirituality of being visited, graced with a grace we could not have imagined, did not earn, and cannot possess. 

 

Simeon and Anna have waited, not for minutes or months, but decades.  Not wasting time, not sitting idly by, but already within them is the presence of the Savior, absent to their senses, not yet enfleshed, but truly present in the person of the Holy Spirit.  The spirit of him for whom they wait but do not see is resting on them, which inspires their faithful watching.  Gregory of Nyssa speaks of the mystery of yearning and satisfaction.  We ascend up the mountain to God, in the cloud, not seeing the top, not ceasing or falling back, not in order to finally fulfill the desire to see, not because our arrival at the top is guaranteed or even the end, but because the desire is the fulfillment, to ascend is already to have arrived, the cloud, if we were to discern wisely, is not the barrier to the vision of God, but is already the presence of the mystery itself.  Simeon is “looking forward to the consolation”, the “comforting spirit”… “and the Holy Spirit rested on him.”  Anna is fasting and praying day and night, “at that moment she came…”   The Presentation itself is the fulfillment of that for which Simeon and Anna had hoped and believed.  But their faithful prayer, their attentive presence, all the long months and years that led to this moment were not wasted.  They were living their vocation long before Mary and Joseph and the Baby appeared that day in the temple. Jesus’ presence and power are revealed to those who watch and pray.

How often I still want to know, measure, figure it out – and quickly. How often I would rather possess Jesus than welcome his resting presence; put him to work for me rather than gaze into his eyes.  We all certainly work hard around here and set about our tasks with diligence and care. Sometimes I wonder whether the Holy Spirit is running to catch up with me rather than resting on me!  Within all our good and hard work, let us remember that our vocation is more than the sum of our tasks.  While the important outer work goes on day by day in beautiful and visible ways, there is another kind of work happening below the surface.  The work of God in my soul happens in secret, hidden even from me.  It seems the things that matter to God are not all that public or spectacular.  God usually prefers the quiet and slow. 

We are invited to become people on whom the Holy Spirit rests, in whom this way of expectant waiting and watching and welcoming is the heart of our life in the world.  This rest becomes the companion to all our activity, all our prayers, so that we do everything from peace, not chaos.  We hold ourselves open before the God who prays from within.  The awareness of the desire for divine encounter, the longing for an experience that seems just out of reach, conceivable but not acquired, is ordinary spiritual life.  God can choose to visit us in ways that seem to us to pierce the veil between heaven and earth in which we catch an extraordinary glimpse of the mystery, but those are rare.  Memorable moments come by God’s grace, but do not last very long.  Our openheartedness is not for the sake of an experience, but for the sake of seeing Christ everywhere and in all things.  

In a culture, sometimes even a monastery, that is prone to the worship of productivity, it is tempting to live on the surface and reduce our spirituality to what we can perceive and effect.  We are ushered into the story today to take our place among the waiters and wonderers, with Mary and Joseph.  We, too, are held by the promise of our encounter with Christ in that yet awaits in that place where the dark glass is made clear and we see face to face.  And then the One who was held by Simeon and Anna will hold us in his arms, and we can join in the song of seeing and light.

Amen.

The Presentation of Our Lord - February 2, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC
The Presentation of Our Lord - February 2, 2020

Malachi 3:1-4
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.

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.

"Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
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."

Let's consider the words of the Nunc Dimittis itself.

“... 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, ...”

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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.

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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.

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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.

The Presentation of Our Lord - Saturday, February 2, 2019

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Bob Pierson, OHC
The Presentation of Our Lord, Year C - Saturday, February 2, 2019

Malachi 3:1-4
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40

Click here for an audio version of the sermon.

Today we celebrate two “feast days” if you will:  first, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, and second, Groundhog's Day.  At first glance the two events seem to have nothing in common, but in fact there is a connection.  Both celebrations have to do with the coming of the Light.  In Punxsutawny, PA, people will be watching a groundhog named Phil, so see if he sees his shadow.  If he does, we will have six more weeks of winter.  Or is it the other way around?  I can never keep it straight.  The fact of the matter is we will have at least six more weeks of winter regardless, because the spring equinox is six weeks away.  This curious event is situated on February 2nd because it's the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.

The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord is set on February 2nd because it's 40 days after Christmas, and according to Jewish tradition, that's the day that a new mother needs to present herself in the Temple for her “purification” after childbirth.  But according to Luke's account, it's also the day that Mary and Joseph bring the child Jesus to the Temple for his presentation to “be designated as holy to the Lord.”  And as Jesus is introduced to the old man, Simeon, he issues a statement which is very familiar to those of us who pray Compline on a regular basis:  “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, 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.”

Phil the groundhog sees his shadow when the light of the sun appears, and Simeon sees his salvation when the light for revelation to the Gentiles appears.  Wouldn't it be great if we paid as much attention to the coming of the light in Jesus as some of us do to the coming of the light to create Phil's shadow?  Simeon's bold proclamation is good news not just to the people of Israel but to the Gentiles, or as some translations put it, the nations, in other words, all peoples of the world.  Jesus is announced as the savior of the world by the old man in the Temple, and his parents are “amazed.”

But not everything that Simeon has to say is Good News.  He also announces that Jesus' ministry will bring “the falling and rising of many in Israel” and that he “will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed,” and he tells Mary “a sword will pierce your own soul too.”  I wonder how Mary and Joseph reacted to that news.  Were they still “amazed?”  Are we “amazed” at what we are hearing today?  As both Simeon and Anna attest, this baby is a very special child.

As the light of each day gets longer and longer, we are reminded that the Light that is Christ has come to enlighten our lives, and to cast away the shadows so that we can live in the salvation God has planned for us.  Let's make sure we recognize that Light and allow it to illuminate our lives.  The people who walked in darkness HAVE seen a great light;  so arise, shine for your light has come, a light of revelation to the nations and for the glory of God's people everywhere.

The Feast of The Presentation of Our Lord

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Randy Greve, OHC
The Feast of The Presentation of Our Lord -  Thursday, February 2, 2017

A number of years ago when I was a youth minister, I took a group of youth on a summer mission trip from Charleston, South Carolina, to Lexington, Kentucky.  We stopped along the way in Knoxville, Tennessee and spent the night at Ascension Church.  There had been a severe thunderstorm a few hours before we arrived and the power was out. The summer days were long and then as night fell we settled in with flashlights and a few candles. Emergency lights illumined the corridor outside the classroom where we were sleeping. During the wee hours, the power still out, I got up to go to the bathroom without a flashlight, cleverly thinking that I could prop open the door and achieve enough light from the hallway to see.

The world began to go dark. I glanced back just in time to see that the door stop was slipping.  The only other time I remember utter darkness was during a tour of Mammoth Cave when the guide, having led us sufficiently far into the cave, turned the lights off.  This is not an “Oh, it’s hard to see in this dim light” kind of darkness, but the total absence of light.  Meanwhile back in the bathroom, what was the easiest few steps of entry in the light, as muted as it was, became, upon leaving, a bumbling, stumbling groping around. Standing in what looked just like Mammoth Cave in the dark, which is to say it looked exactly like nothing, I said to myself, “I remember where the door is, I’ll just retrace my steps.” After bumping into walls and doors that I would have sworn were not there a minute before, I finally broke free into the welcomed embrace of the emergency hall lights. Salvation.

We take light so much for granted.  It is at our fingertips with the flip of a switch, press of a button, or turn of a knob.  We organize our days from light to light, pushing back the disorienting darkness.  Light is control, a reassuring connection to the world. Without light, there is no seeing, and in that blindness and helplessness we are momentarily shocked by our dependent creatureliness.Were the world to go dark, chaos would instantly fill the void left by the absent light and we would spend our time groping around, wondering how we might survive.

Because light is so important it makes sense, then, that salvation, light, and glory are closely linked images in the Gospels for Christ and why Luke especially illustrates the spiritual significance of Jesus’ birth with scenes of light shining and glory declared and characters naming this reality in exclamations that celebrate the move from spiritual night to day.  Could there be a more dramatic way to communicate that in Christ’s coming something important has happened in the world?  Luke reintroduces the image in reverse on Good Friday.  The last verse before Jesus dies on the cross; “It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole earth until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.” The very heavens that sang in joyful light in a star at his birth cry in darkness at his death.

Salvation and light and glory inspire celebration and gratitude; positive words of hope and new life, which indeed they are. Christ has come, but then I am invited to respond, to receive him, and that is where things get interesting.  It would be nice if our souls were as clear about discerning light and dark as our eyes, but they are not.  I have said and continue to say, “yes”, I do indeed want the light of Christ to continue to shine in me more and more. I have said and continue to say “no” - not too much light, thank you, and only where I want it to shine. Within the mystery of the human condition, within my soul and your soul, is the reality that as much as we desire to have the light of Christ shine in us, we also resist and avoid it.  What I experience in my heart as the life that I most deeply desire is the very life that at times I run from and reject.  We invite the light to shine and then it does and then we recoil at all that is illuminated.

It just is not pleasant to be totally exposed, to have the fearful, secret, shame-filled parts of me seen in all their unavoidable reality.  Not only do I find that I venture into the dimly lit bathroom of my soul, but sometimes I close the door myself. So strong is my avoidance of God, and thus myself, that the darkness of isolation is safer than the exposure of the light. The light shining in me is the very reality that reveals my duplicity.   Transformation always burns before it changes us because if we open to being lit up, God shows us to ourselves and invites us to offer the fullest and most intimate gift of our selves – all of us.

Simeon comes to the Holy Family in the Temple as the witness of the joyful coming of God among us and with us in the Christ, but he is not naïve or ignorant about what that means.  The Gospel says, 34Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

I want the light of God’s love to be warm, reassuring, and safe.  And by those words I really mean I want a trouble-free shortcut to happiness by doing what I am already doing.  Because God loves me better than I love myself, the light of Christ is challenging, but good news that does not bend to my desire for mere selective sight.  Simeon is honest in his description of what this light means.

The light he describes is piercing and penetrating and revealing – and therefore also uncomfortable and unsettling and dangerous and even painful.  That is the nature of light.  It does not narrow, it is not selectively adjustable. The aperture does not close.  It will not let me be God.  I do not control it, but undergo it.  His canticle, together with his words to Mary, forms a unit that names our own inner contradiction, our own simultaneous “yes” and “no”. The falling and rising, the opposition, the exposure of thoughts, the soul-piercing sword are realities within the life of Jesus.

They are also realities within me – to the extent that I participate in the light of conversion.The hope-filled news here is that the Gospel does its work of exposing me in the light of Christ’s love so that I can know and give myself to Christ and my neighbor. Like the sun, I can see the effects of Christ’s light better than the light itself. If I find myself scurrying for the shadows, it is because somewhere light is shining.  Conversion is my willingness to stop and be illumined.Conversion is my willingness to see like Simeon. My eyes have seen your salvation.  

Light has shone on reality.  When the light shines I know and can declare to God that my desire for comfort is not your salvation, my attachment to security is not your salvation.  Our darknesses – be they in caves or bathrooms or the darkness of our own hearts – are to teach us, to show us to ourselves, to orient us to the direction of the light, to beckon us back into glory and salvation.  The invitation is to see what God illuminates, to let the exposing light be a gift that I receive from the heart of a loving and caring God.

Presentation - Feb 3, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

The Rev. Matthew Wright

Presentation (transferred), Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Luke 2:22-40

“Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘[…] and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’”

Jesus coming at the end of times

I speak to you in the Name of the One, Holy, and Living God.

Today we celebrate Candlemas, or the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple, when 40 days after his birth, Mary and Joseph made an offering in the Temple on behalf of their firstborn son. But this is only one side of the coin of this feast day—the side that makes it a principal feast, recalling one of the major events in the life of Christ.

But prior to the 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church remembered this feast as “the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary”—a name still used by our brothers and sisters in the Anglican Church of Canada. The day when, 40 days after childbirth, Mary went with her husband to offer the appointed sacrifice for her purification according to Levitical law. And so this feast day was also, historically, a Marian feast.

Whether because of embarrassment around misogynistic conceptions of female purity, or because of a general shying away from Marian devotion, we in the Episcopal Church have dropped the Marian side of our feast day coin, which personally I find a little unfortunate.

There’s also one other name for this feast day, 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.” These two often strike me, Anna in particular, 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. They are, as Lynn Bauman describes the monastic vocation, eschatological beings (eschatology, of course, referring to “the Last Things,” to the end and goal of creation). Bauman writes:

To be an “eschatological being” means that practitioners of this path live now, in time, in light of this Ultimate End, […They] “proclaim the abolition of profane history” and announce the coming of a new [...] human community inhabited by the new humanity. Eschatological beings help men and women in the contemporary world to wake up […]. [They remind us that] there is an ultimate objective that is being realized even now...

Anna and Simeon were such reminders to Israel, abolishing profane history and 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 eschatological beings—noticed an unnoticeable couple with their infant, coming to offer two turtle doves, the offering appointed for the poor who could not afford a lamb. Anna and Simeon had cultivated a different way of seeing.

Now if Anna and Simeon are proto-monastics, Christ and Mary are monastic prototypes. If Anna and Simeon wait and hope for the eschaton, for the fulfillment of all things, Christ and Mary embody it. In Christ, the eschaton arrives as Person. In Christ there is no longer a hoping and waiting for the fullness of time, but a living out of it, from it, here and now.

Jonathan Wilson, who coined the term “new monasticsm”—at least in its current popular usage—writes that “living eschatologically is making present that which is yet to come.” Making present that which is yet to come. That’s what communities like Holy Cross do for the rest of us. That’s what, ultimately, all Christian communities are called to do. To make present, here and now in this world, a glimpse, an instantiation, of that which is yet to come. We are no longer called with Anna and Simeon to simply live in hope of Christ, but rather we are called to live Christ.

Wilson writes that, in our contemporary, postmodern world, we have lost a sense of telos, of an end-point, of a goal towards which everything is driving and around which we orient our lives. He says that the “recovery of teleological thinking and living [or, we might say, eschatological thinking and living] is one, perhaps the, critical task of the day.” And it’s communities like this one that exist to bear witness to that task—that we can create a coherent life organized around a meaningful, authentic, life-giving telos. That telos, of course, is Christ.

In the First Coming of Christ, recognized here by Anna and Simeon, the eschaton, our telos, our end, arrives as Person, as one embodying that final fulfillment. In the Second Coming—at least as my hero Teilhard de Chardin would have it—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.

Which brings me back around to the flip-side of our coin: that today is an equally Marian celebration. As most of you know, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately wading into Marian devotional writings as I prepare for the retreat I’m leading next month. And one of the most striking images I’ve encountered has come from St. Louis Grignon de Montfort, who wrote The True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. De Montfort uses Mary in a particularly eschatological way. He believed that we were approaching, or entering into, what he called an “Age of Mary.” And that while Mary was all but hidden in Christ’s first incarnation, for the Second Coming to happen, she must be known fully and openly. He wrote:

“In these latter times Mary must shine forth more than ever in mercy, power and grace…”

“The salvation of the world began through Mary and through her it must be accomplished.”

“For your kingdom to come, O Lord, may the kingdom of Mary come.”

To live eschatologically, to be eschatological beings in the Christian sense, we have to be Marian beings. For Christ to come in fullness, we have to collectively be Mary. De Montfort wrote: “As she was the way by which Jesus first came to us, she will again be the way by which he will come to us the second time though not in the same manner.” Not individually, but collectively. Not as a single person, but as a growing Body of Christ. And so we are called to be Marian communities, communities of surrender. Eschatological communities that orient our world, and God willing, the world, towards our true telos, towards Christ, through Mary.

The way of Mary prepares for the birth of Christ in our world on an ever-growing scale. As we daily repeat her “yes” with the bells of the Angelus—“be it unto me according to your word”—as we daily repeat her “yes” to bearing Christ, her “yes” today to offering him at the Temple, her “yes” to Simeon’s prophecy, “and a sword will pierce your own soul too,” as we keep saying “yes,” as we become Mary, the Word becomes flesh; we become eschatological beings, bearing Christ together.

And a sword will pierce our own souls too. We cannot mother the growing Christ and escape that piercing. 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. If Christ came the first time through Mary’s surrender, for Christ to come in fullness, it will be through our collective Marian service and surrender.

And so I pray: On this Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, may we all be held in the sweetness of Mary, and may we slowly, slowly become her. May we keep awake and waiting with Anna and Simeon, eyes ready to see Christ in the poor and the unnoticed. May we collectively bear Christ for the world.

Amen.

The Presentation - Feb 2, 2012

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Scott Borden, OHC
Feast of the Presentation – Thursday, February 2, 2012


Malachi 3:1-4
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40


Today we celebrate the Presentation of Christ in the Temple – but we could celebrate the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary – or feast of The Meeting of Christ with Simeon. Not enough choice?

Candlemas is another name for today's feast’s – it includes the Purification and Presentation and thanksgiving for relief from a plague. Today is a day of options...

The story of the Presentation in Luke occupies an interesting place - it is the end of the beginning if you will - the last thing Luke tells us of the infancy of Jesus. After this morning’s passage Luke tells us that Jesus grew up and became strong, filled with wisdom... and 12 years go by before we get further details...

For me this feast is the climax of Luke’s birth narrative – and it may be the most stunning moment in scripture. So what leads us to this moment? This is the point in a television drama where the announcer says: “Previously in the Gospel according to Luke...”

Elizabeth, the Mother of John the Baptist becomes pregnant. It is a miraculous pregnancy – unexpected and most deeply longed for. Then Mary becomes pregnant. It is also a miraculous pregnancy – unexpected, but not exactly longed for. Mary is assured by an Angel that it is God’s will that she become pregnant and her reaction to the news, expressed to Elizabeth, is so profoundly beautiful and powerful that we recite it daily – the Song of Mary. “My soul glorifies the lord and my spirit rejoices!”

Then Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem where Jesus is born in a stable with a chorus of shepherds (as opposed to a chorus of “the right sort of people”) in attendance. Luke is underscoring the point that the margins of society are closer to God's heart.

Then, according to Luke, after 8 days Jesus is circumcised – in accordance with the law. 33 days later Mary has completed her time of Purification – in accordance with the law. And Jesus is ready for Presentation – in accordance with the law. That string of out-of-the-ordinary events brings us to today's various feasts.

There is one more moment where something out of the ordinary happens: Old Simeon, a very holy man, arrives at the temple guided by the Spirit. He takes Jesus in his arms and delivers his famous song - “Lord, you are dismissing your servant in peace and according to your word.” Once again it is a text of such beauty and power that it is a daily fixture in our worship.

Simeon knows that he will not die before the law of God is fulfilled. When Simeon says that he may now depart in peace (and just to be clear, that is his “departure” from this life), it is because Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. This moment is not just the end of the story of the birth of Jesus, it is the end of a much bigger story.

"Simeon's Moment" - Ron DiCianni - 1978

Lets put our feet in the sandals of the holy family. They are devout and faithful Jews. Their entire lives are bound not just to serving the law, but to loving the law. The Psalms tell us that the just meditate on God’s law day and night. That is what Mary and Joseph have been doing presumably for all their lives. They have followed civil law and God’s law to the letter. They are devoted to the law and the law is their life. And here is Simeon telling them that their child completes the law. Simeon may depart in peace, but what about those who are left behind? What about Mary and Joseph? What about us?

That is why this is one of the most stunning moments in scripture. It is turning point, a crisis, the moment when everything changes. Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph were amazed. Indeed. The world, as Mary and Joseph and all faithful children of Israel know it, is gone forever. “All generations will call me blessed.” Maybe yes... maybe no...

Simeon could probably have stopped with his song – Mary was no doubt adequately traumatized. But no, he tells her that her son will be at the center of great upheaval and that a sword will pierce her soul. Thank you Simeon! We get the picture. Or do we?

We look at the details of Luke from our vantage point and see a story of a remarkable “forced entry” into the world. Mary, a virgin, conceives. That’s revolutionary to us because we know everything there is to know about conception and birth. Our headline reads: “Virgin conceives.” But that might not have been the headline 2000 years ago. After all, Mary’s pregnancy didn’t break any scientific laws at that time.

Luke’s story of the birth of Christ reaches its climax today. Faithful devotion to the law has led Mary and Joseph to this time of Presentation. And here they learn that they are going to have to find a new way to know and love God; a way without the law. The implications of God’s incarnation start to become apparent. Their headline reads: “Unchanging God changes.” Now that’s news!

Jesus, from this moment on, is revolution. Jesus is not a revolutionary... Jesus is the revolution! To follow Jesus is to be in revolution. Being a Christian, being part of the body of Christ, is being in revolution. It is an ongoing revolution – a revolution of love: Love of God, love of self, and love of neighbor.

Mary and Joseph have to learn a new way to know and love God, a way that does not involve perfecting their understanding of God’s law. We, too, need to learn to know and love God in ways that are not legal. Jesus did not replace the old law with a new one – though many fundamentalists (including our own “internal fundamentalists”) might wish it so.

Our revolutionary path is a path of insecurity – a path of faith, not of law... A path that calls us to be entirely present in this moment because we can not love in any other moment.

Love of God, love of self, and love of neighbor... Neighbor is very broadly defined. Simeon speaks of a light to be a revelation to all the world. That is how broad the definition of neighbor is. In this revolution of love we move from “I, me, and mine” to “ours and us” - not just us Christians, not just us Americans, not even just us human beings or just us carbon-based life forms... Its us – all the works of God’s hand – animal, vegetable, mineral... ALL the earth, including the earth. All us and no them...

This revolution – Simeon’s revelation – is still most desperately needed, here, now, this moment. The revolution of Jesus is entirely current. Human greed, power, and ambition are as powerful and destructive in our world as ever. The wall between us and them is built higher and defended more agressively. Self-interest, even “enlightened” self-interest is not compatible with the revolution of Jesus. Only the interest of love, and the justice born of love, is compatible with this revolution.

The implications are enormous – touching every aspects of how we live our lives – politics, justice, economy, ecology, education, and on and on. Mary and Joseph probably thought they were going to a routine Presentation... We could easily spend the rest of our lives contemplating its enormity.

But we might better look to the Songs of Mary and of Simeon. These are songs of rapture and of liberation. They say “yes Lord, here I am, your willing servant, in you I place my faith. Lead me. Free me.” These songs show us how to let go, to trust, to feel joy at the presence of God’s love in our lives and in our hearts.

The task is not monumentally daunting, though as Simeon warns Mary, it is not pain free. It is a path that is joy-filled. It is the leaving of “self” behind.

So let us respond to God's incarnation with rapturous, willing, and open joy as Mary did. To worship and serve without fear, like Zechariah. Let us celebrate that our eyes, as Simeon’s, have seen salvation and that we are set free. Let the light of the Gospel and the love of God shine in and through us so that we can carry that light to all the world. In Jesus' name we pray.