-
January 28, 2021
Praised be Jesus Christ! During this 4th week in the ordinary time, on Tuesday, February 2nd (40 days after Christmas), we celebrate the Feast day of the Presentation of the Lord. This feast, originating in 4th C. Jerusalem, came to be celebrated in Rome by the middle of 5th c. as the “feast of the meeting”; known also as Candlemas Day.
It is also a day in the Catholic Church observed as the World Day for Consecrated Life. Its purpose is “to help the entire Church to esteem ever more greatly the witness of those persons who have chosen to follow Christ by means of the practice of the evangelical counsels” as well as “to be a suitable occasion for consecrated persons to renew their commitment and rekindle the fervor which should inspire their offering of themselves to the Lord” (St. Pope John II, 1997).
At the Presentation of the Lord, we have the characters: Baby Jesus, the young mother - Mary, the young foster father - Joseph, and are surrounded by Simeon and Anna. The last two are the faithful remnants of an old religion of Judaism with her customs and traditions: “just as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord, and to offer the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.” (Luke 2:23-24).
Like mother Mary who recognized the divinity of the Child Jesus, and presented her back to God, she anticipated the joy of every mother who brings her child to the baptismal font, where God may claim His own.
We have been consecrated through baptismal waters, let us offer our lives to God, who is forever present to us in Jesus the Son of God – the ‘Alpha’ and the ‘Omega’ (the beginning and the end. “It is not so much our presents that God wants from us, as it is our presence, as we offer our life to Him.” - Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (The Fifteen Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, 1951).
Let us join Simeon and Anna who express their joy at the meeting of the child Jesus and his mother. The two welcomed Jesus’ first appearance in the temple and they embody for us the patient anticipation of the long-awaited Messiah. Both Simeon and Anna express their joy upon seeing and receiving the baby Jesus in their hands. This is the Church’s joy, our joy when we encounter Jesus.
May this Feast of the Presentation of the Lord continue to remind us of the centrality of the Baby Jesus at the mystery of the incarnation, who must grow with in us, through our living the true faith as we proclaim and spread the kingdom of God to the ends of the earth.
Fr. Alfred Tumwesigye