Feast of the Presentation of the Lord February 2, 2020 We may think - PDF document

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord – February 2, 2020 We may think we are walking backwards with this feast day as it is more aligned with the Christmas Season. Some churches keep their cribs up until today. It’s forty days since we celebrated Christmas. Mary and Joseph are fulfilling a faith tradition, coming to the Temple to give thanks for the gift of a child, Jesus Christ. Faith traditions are important. Though we don’t want to fulfill them just because they are a tradition, something we think we should do, like purchasing an insurance policy, but rather because they are central to who we are. Baptism: I have to have my child baptized, it’s what we do, we are Catholic! Even if a family rarely come to church to celebrate their faith on a regular basis, they still want to keep the tradition of baptism alive. So many symbols surrounding the ritual: Oils, Water, Candle, White Garment. Each one affirming who we are as sons and daughters of God, an affirmation of our dignity. We are immersed into the life of Jesus Christ and the faith of the Church, but it has to be lived, nurtured, nourished otherwise it can fade, die or just be an occasion marked by photos rather than an affirmation of the vocation we aim to live each day. Today, some of our young people, and not so young, will be confirmed in their faith. Do you remember your Confirmation? (Reflect on mine: I was more worried about kissing the Bishop’s ring than the Sacrament, the gift, I was receiving). Faith traditions are important when they are truly connected to who we are and the way we live. Mary and Joseph must have wondered what they were going to hear next about this child. They come to the Temple and a man of faith named Simeon declares that his dreams and hopes are now fulfilled because he has laid eyes on the gift of salvation, the light of the world, and so he can die in peace. Both he and Anna have been praying from the depths of their heart for the Messiah to come among them, to fulfill their long-expected hope, and now he is here in the person of Jesus. A couple of weeks ago we had our DREAM EVENT (children at our school have a DREAM WALL). Dreams are not fantasies, dreams allow us to focus on what could be, and what our role will or might be in bringing them to fruition. Our dreams can be fulfilled in another person, we can see them fulfilled in others. I am not sure what your dream outcome is for tonight’s Super Bowl, but if your team truly works together, and makes all the right moves, your dream outcome might come true! Your team would not be in tonight’s final if they did not have the capability to win, but do they have the resolve, team spirit and required skills? We will soon find out!

Simeon and Anna were obviously people of prayer, otherwise they would not have spent so much time in the Temple! Are prayers like dreams? They could be. If we have a sick relative or friend we pray for their recovery. Does our prayer heal them? Prayer is definitely a source of healing. Why do I say that? Because prayer brings us into God’s presence, and can provide peace. Some things are just out of our control. Those in the medical field can do so much, but they may not be able to provide the miracle, the result, we are looking for, we are hoping for, not necessarily for ourselves but for others. Prayer keeps our feet firmly on the ground. Our prayers can be prayers of anger and hurt, simply questioning why this is happening or has happened? Prayer reminds us in whose hands we ultimately are. Life is not always going to be fair or seemingly just, but God will still be there, our emotions, pain and hurt cannot change that. Some words should be left unspoken….or should they? I often wonder what Mary thought having heard Simeon say to her that her child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, a sign of contradiction, a sign to be rejected, resulting in a sword piercing her heart. If I was Mary I would have asked for an explanation, I would want more details, I would want Simeon to spell out what he actually means. We reflect on this story knowing the outcome, knowing exactly what Simeon meant. Jesus was (is) a sign of contradiction, just read the Scriptures, every word he said, so much of it is contrary to how we live, how we form our lives and relationships. Jesus suffered the ultimate rejection by being nailed to a Tree, a Cross; and for any parent to see their child go through this, to suffer and die in this way, would certainly be a sword piercing through their heart. Parents absorb the suffering they witness in their sons and daughters, its aligned to loving unconditionally. Simeon and Anna were people of HOPE, one of the eternal gifts. Sometimes we may think we are hoping against hope. Hope does not deny reality but sees beyond it. We can’t deny the reality of sickness and death, but the hope which springs from faith allows us to see beyond them, knowing they will not have the last word, and are not signs of a vindictive God, but a very unfortunate part of our human condition. God in Christ Jesus takes us beyond our human condition and affirms what is eternal. This is why Jesus is a sign of contradiction…..to those who think or believe death is the end, Jesus proves it to be otherwise, and transforms it into the gateway to eternity. Hope is a powerful gift because it stops you from limiting what is possible. I am sure many people told Anna and Simeon to get a life, to stop hoping against hope. But people of hope are prepared to wait, to hang on.

Their hope is found in the waiting. Hope sometimes requires passing through a crisis in order to find it, experience it. It can turn everything upside down as it did for Mary and Joseph. Hope can be born through darkness, the darkness of a cross. Who could have imagined that a brutal means of execution, a cross, would be the gateway to salvation, redemption. This is outrageous hope! The worst crisis that the Church ever suffered was the moment of her foundation, the Last Supper. This was the bleakest and first moment in the life of the Church. One disciple had just sold Jesus, Peter was about to deny him, and the rest would flee. It was a moment of utter collapse and failure. And it is just then that Jesus makes humanity’s most hopeful gesture. He takes bread, breaks it and shares it saying, ‘This is my body, given for you’. He takes wine and pours it saying ‘This is my blood, poured out for you. This is the new covenant.’ Every Eucharist is a re-enactment of this crisis through which hope is given to us. Simeon sees the gift of hope in this child. Every child born is a sign of hope, but none more than this one. Hope is God among us as a child. Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe visited Rwanda (Africa) during the genocide in 1994. He visited the country with a fellow priest who had given twenty-five years of his life working there. Everything was destroyed and most of his friends had died. They both wept together. But that Christmas his brother priest sent him a photo of himself with two big Rwandan babies in his arms, and on the photo he wrote: ‘Africa has a future.’ As we celebrate this child who comes into the Temple, we can say that the whole of humanity now has a future. Hope is among us, and nothing can take it away, the child’s name is Jesus, the Light of the World, the source of our Salvation! Amen!