Homily On The Feast Of The Presentation Of The Lord, Sunday, February 2nd, 2025

Forty days have passed since we celebrated the joyful feast of the Nativity of the Lord. Today marks that blessed day when Jesus was presented in the temple by Mary and Joseph.

Outwardly he was fulfilling the law, but in reality, he was coming to meet his believing people who await to encounter him. “The Encounter” or “the Meeting” is what this feast is called and celebrated as, in the Eastern Churches as early as the fourth century AD.

It was not until the sixth century AD that it began to be celebrated in the West, in the Roman Rite, popularly called “Candlemass” because of the procession with candles that we just partook in moments ago.

The focus of this feast is twofold; first, the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and second, the revelation of the Son of Mary, Our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Light of the world, the Light to the Nations and the glory of Israel.

As the Light of the world, this feast of Presentation in the Temple shows Jesus as the firstborn Son who belongs to God, who in fact is God. He is recognized as the long-expected Christ, the Messiah, the Light that dispels darkness in the world, the Light that manifests the glory of God upon his people.

The letter to the Hebrews in today’s second reading, tells us that the child Jesus manifests the glory of God by destroying “the one who has the power of death…and free those who through fear of death had been subject to slavery all their life…He [is] a merciful and faithful high priest before God to expiate the sins of the people.” He is the light that refines and purifies. For “He will sit refining and purifying… he will purify the sons of Levi, refining them like gold or like silver that they may offer due sacrifice to the Lord,” the Prophet Malachi tells us in today’s first reading.

Early Church Fathers like Augustine, John Chrysostom, Justin Martyr, Origen and others, see in this and other prophecies of Malachi a strong reference to what God is doing among his people, making them a holy priesthood, a people set apart to offer the pure sacrifice to him.

That offering is the offering of the sacrifice of the Eucharist from the rising of the sun to its setting, that is, from all corners of the world, sacrifices offered to God by the Church. It is so much so that Malachi’s words are incorporated in the Roman Rite, at the very first part of the third Eucharistic.

Prayer thus: “…you give life to all things and make them holy, and you never cease to gather a people to yourself, so that from the rising of the sun to its setting a pure sacrifice may be offered to your name.” Those words are adaptation of Mal 1:11.

Again, Malachi’s words from the first reading of today proclaims the dramatic oracle of the sudden coming of the “messenger of the covenant” to the temple, to restore the glory of God in the temple. The child Jesus, the Word Incarnate, the Lamb of Sacrifice, enters the temple today to purify it and restore its glory.

This oracle of Malachi also manifests that this first arrival of the child Jesus was a premonition of his mission to purify not just the temple, but all the children of God like gold and silver as to offer pure sacrifice due to God, the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus himself, for forgiveness of sins and for the life and salvation of the world.

This is fulfilled in his passion, death and resurrection. So, in that sense, the Mass that we celebrate today and always, is a re-presentation of Jesus in the temple at its climax, the sacrifice at calvary. We re-enact that holy sacrifice of the Cross at Mass, making present again the very act that brought us forgiveness, freed us from the one who has the power of death, and restored us to divine friendship and love.

The other aspect of today’s feast is the focus on the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Luke in today’s Gospel, associates the redemption of the firstborn son with his mother’s purification. This rite stems from the Jewish law of the purification of a woman after childbirth in Leviticus 12.

While this ritual, referred to as the “Cleanliness Code,” seeks to evaluate the suitability of something or someone to be in the presence of God as clean and holy or unclean and common, our Blessed Virgin Mary did not need to observe this because she is the Mother of God, Spouse of the Holy Spirit. She conceived of the Holy Spirit and so is free from all uncleanness. But she humbled herself to undergo the Jewish purity laws. As Bede the Venerable puts it, “But that we might be loosed from the bonds of the law, as did Christ, so also Mary submitted herself of her own will to the law.”

She observed the stipulations of the “Cleanliness Code,” exemplifying for us virtues that we should intentionally seek as we undergo our purification here on earth through the various means the Church provides for us.

Today is also observed as World Day for Consecrated Life, a day, as St. Pope John Paul II said, we as a Church esteem ever more greatly the witness of those persons who have chosen to follow Christ, the Light of the World, by means of the practice of the evangelical counsels.

It is also a day for all consecrated persons to renew their commitment and rekindle the fervor which should always inspire their offering of themselves to the Lord as to be suitable to offer the due sacrifice pleasing to God in the various ways they live out their vocations; that they may be docile to the purification from the refiner’s fire or the fuller’s lye that refines them as pure gold or silver, to continue to offer due sacrifice to the Lord.

As we pray at this Eucharistic sacrifice for ourselves, for the whole Church, and in a special way for all persons in the Consecrated Life, we call on Our Blessed Mother, the Most Beautiful Maiden, as in the hymn Ave, Regina Caelorum, Ave Domina angelorum, saying:

Hail, Queen of Heaven
Hail, Lady of Angels
Hail, thou root, hail, thou gate
From whom into the world, a light has arisen:

Rejoice, glorious Virgin,
Lovely above all others,
Farewell, most beautiful maiden,
And pray for us to Christ [your Son, Amen!]

Fr Stan Achu