The feast we celebrate today has had enough different names over the
centuries to qualify it for something of an identity crisis! Years
ago it was known on Church calendars as the feast of the Purification of
the Blessed Virgin Mary, although people commonly called it Candlemas
Day. In more recent years, the Church officially named it the Feast of
the Presentation of the Lord. And so it is. But after a little research,
I discovered yet one more name for this feast, a name that goes all the
way back to sixth-century Constantinople where this feast was known as
“The Encounter.”
The Encounter. I like that. Encounter is a word
capable of embracing all the different facets of this feast, all the
layers of the lovely story that Luke, alone among the four Evangelists,
gives to us in his gospel - today’s gospel.
The Encounter. The meeting. In this
case, a meeting with the holy, a meeting with the All Holy God.
Today’s first reading from the Prophet Malachi set the tone. Malachi’s
prophecy comes from a time in Jewish history when the worship of God in
the temple at Jerusalem had grown cold – the victim of sterile ritualism
and lukewarm faith. In the midst of that dismal religious landscape God
raised up the prophet Malachi who stirred people’s consciences and got
them to look toward a time when the light of God’s glory would blaze
forth in the temple “like a refiner’s fire.” People with half-hearted
faith would come alive and encounter the living God.
The Encounter. Luke’s gospel tells how
Mary and Joseph, full of gratitude and eager to fulfill the demands of
the Law, brought their newborn child to the temple to present him to the
Lord. Imagine what a happy moment this must have been for Mary and
Joseph - not unlike the moment when proud parents bring their baby to
the church for baptism. This wasn’t Mary and Joseph’s first visit to the
temple, of course – it wasn’t the first time they had encountered God in
that holy place which, more than any other, made the Divine Presence
very real for the Jewish people. But this time was different. When Mary
and Joseph carried their little child into the temple a remarkable thing
occurred: a holy place – a very holy place - became infinitely holier:
the holy temple made by human hands welcomed the one who was the living
temple of God, this little child, the Christ, the Light. It was the ultimate Encounter.
Soon, out of the
shadows, making their way toward the Light, came two people, Simeon and
Anna, full of years and full of hope. They had waited so long for this
moment and their waiting was not just their own – their waiting was the
waiting of generations of people down through long ages, a waiting that
had begun back in the Garden of Eden when all had seemed lost; a waiting
that had gained intensity when Abraham and Sarah answered God’s call and
left their homeland for a new land; a waiting that gained even greater
intensity when Moses heard God’s voice speaking to him from the burning
bush, calling him to lead his people from slavery to freedom.
All that waiting, that interminable waiting,
until this moment when the old man Simeon came on the scene, took the
Child in his arms, and saw in him the salvation that God had promised so
long ago. The waiting was over at last. It came to an end in this tiny
child in whom Simeon saw the fulfillment of God’s Promise, the
realization of the people’s hopes: “The light of revelation to the
gentiles,” as Simeon called him, “the glory of God’s people, Israel.”
And Anna, the old woman, her long wait was over, too. In her encounter
with the little Child, she must have felt young again!
The Encounter. This lovely feast is our
encounter, too, my friends, our encounter with the Child, the Christ.
We met him forty days ago on Christmas, of course, when we marveled
that God could be so very small, so humble, so poor, and could love us
so much. And today we meet him as the Light – not just the light of our
lives but the light for all peoples. That’s why we began this
celebration by spreading the light through the Cathedral and singing of
Christ who is our light.
And now, in just a few minutes we will do what
we do at every Mass: take bread and break it, bless wine and drink it in
memory of Jesus, and in doing so, we will encounter once again the
profound mystery of his love. And then we will go forth from this place
of encounter, go forth to do what Jesus did: to encounter and bring
blessing to a pretty self-absorbed and broken world: compassion to the
poor, encouragement to the downhearted, freedom to those held bound,
hope to the hurting. There is so much need out there, isn’t there!
And there are so many who need to encounter the Christ as Simeon and
Anna did, and to be forever changed by him as they were.
The Encounter. My friends, this feast is
The Encounter and this is the place of encounter – not the only one but
a privileged one. May our communion with Christ and with one another in
this Eucharist fill us with love and send us forth, eager to light the
world with fire and to warm it with love. Our fire, our love!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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