Ad Jesum per Mariam

Presentation of Our Lady

The Presentation of Our Lady Today we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lady in the Temple, . . . . . . a celebration with a unique and somewhat debated history in the Roman Church calendar. Following the Second Vatican Council’s revisions, questions arose about whether to retain this feast. While it had modest significance in the Western tradition, it holds profound importance in the Eastern Churches, where it has been celebrated for centuries. This prominence is partly due to the dedication of a significant church in Jerusalem on November 21, the origin of this feast’s date. Ultimately, the Church chose to keep the feast as a gesture of respect for the shared traditions of the global Christian community. This decision underscores the Roman Church’s recognition of the deep reverence for Our Lady shared with the Eastern Orthodox and other Christian traditions. On this feast, we honor the collective devotion to Mary and the pivotal role God assigned her in His plan for salvation. The Tradition of this Presentation The tradition of the Presentation originates from the Protoevangelium of James, an early but non-canonical text written to fill gaps in scripture about Mary’s life. This text, while not divinely inspired, reflects the pious curiosity of early Christians about Mary’s background, including her parents, Joachim and Anne, whose names also come from this source. Historically, their names are unknown, but the Church embraces them as a way to relate to Mary’s human lineage. Mary’s Mission The narrative of Mary’s presentation parallels Old Testament stories, such as the conception of John the Baptist. These stories emphasize miraculous births to elderly, childless parents, symbolizing God’s intervention in salvation history. However, unlike earlier figures, Mary stands out as a girl with a mission surpassing that of any man in salvation history. Her life mirrors these prophetic figures but also transcends them, pointing to her unique role as the Mother of God. This feast invites us to reflect on the divine purpose in Mary’s life, celebrating her as the bridge between the Old and New Testaments and as the one through whom the world would receive its Savior. Hear more about the Presentation of Our Lady in the Temple. Listen to this Meditation Conference. Listen to: The Presentation of Our Lady -------------------------------- Image: Mary, Most Holy: American Artist and Painter: Charles Bosseron Chambers: 1930s This is an amazing “portrait” of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a child. In the painting, Mary is portrayed as a girl of about five years of age. C. Bosseron Chambers (1880 – 1964) was a painter, illustrator and teacher. One publication describes Chambers as the “Norman Rockwell of Catholic art”.

Duration:: 50m
Broadcast on:: 24 Nov 2024
Audio Format:: other

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, amen. Mary, Queen of all hearts, St. Louis and Marie de Montfort. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The feast that we celebrate today, the presentation of our lady in the temple, occupies a significant, peculiar role in the calendar of celebrations in the Roman Church. In fact, if I understand the developments correctly, as the calendar of our feast days was being revised after the Second Vatican Council, there was a real question about this specific feast day. Do we retain it or not? And in part because while it has always enjoyed a certain level of popularity, in the Western Church it was never truly a significant feast day. That is not the case, however, in the Eastern churches, where for centuries this date had been given great prominence. In part because of the dedication of a great church dedicated to our lady, in Jerusalem on the 21st of November, which is where the date of the feast of the presentation in the temple for our lady comes from. And so it was a look at the Church, the Council Fathers, as they were looking at things, and then those entrusted with the task of revising the calendar, looking at the feast day said, "In no small measure because of its significance for our brothers and sisters in the East, we are going to retain it." As a gesture of how much we value the fuller tradition that the people of God have with regard to devotion to and relationship to our lady. So there's an element of this feast where the Roman Church in no small measure looks beyond itself to our brother and sister Christians in the Middle East and the Near East, but also to the Orthodox community as a recognition of there is something that we share between us that finds expression on this feast day. And in no small measure, what we share between us is a tremendous affection for and devotion to our blessed lady, and the insistence that we must never neglect paying careful attention to the rule that Almighty God has been pleased to give her in His plan for the salvation of the world. That having been said then, we look at this feast day then with this broader sense, what does it mean to say that our lady was presented or that there is a presentation of our lady that involves the temple in Jerusalem? As Father Bernard remarked during his homily, "The origin of the details of this tradition is found in a very early work which has never been considered to be inspired," and I want to stress that. This erk, the proto-avangelium of James was written with a couple of things in mind. First of all, there's great curiosity about the backstory of the life of Jesus, especially in particular the virgin mother, because she appears as if out of nowhere in sacred scripture at the moment that Gabriel comes. We know nothing about her family life, we know nothing about her background. But then there are also these curious other references in scripture, and it's one of the readings that we have the gospel reading that we heard today, that reference to the brothers and sisters of the Lord, and how do we understand that? And then there is the long-standing tradition in the church of the perpetual virginity of our lady, but what does it mean then to say that she was married to Joseph? These were questions that people had, and so it's understandable at some point that a pious writer would sit down and prayerfully reflect upon these things, and out of those reflections and meditations find a way of presenting the backstory. The author whose name we don't know took the name James and assigned it to his book because that was a name that had authority, and that was often the custom with ancient writings. The author didn't sign his own name, he attributed the writing to somebody who had authority. And out of this work comes a view of how is it that our lady becomes the mother of God? And so this is the tradition, the source, where we have the names of her parents as Joachim and Anne. Historically, we don't know what the names of Mary's mother and father were, but we do have to call them something, we know she had a mom and dad. So again, when we work with these extra biblical sources, however ancient, we want to be careful how much historical authority we give them. They're really written to help us think about these things. And then the story of our lady coming into the world is written and framed in such a way that it draws from the examples of the Old Testament and the model of the conception of John the Baptist by his elderly parents Elizabeth and Zechariah. And so note, there's a story of an announcement, you know, elderly parents, one of whom is connected to the temple, elderly parents, childless, longing for a child and crying out to heaven as we see so many times presented in Scripture. The angel comes and announces to Zechariah the impending birth of a daughter. And so note in some levels, what we have is not simply a narrow historical account, but an accounting of how our lady comes into the world that is modeled upon and mirrored upon the way other great figures in the history of Israel have come into the world with this difference. All of those other remarkable instances involved a boy, but this one involves a girl. And this is a very real difference in terms of how there may be similarities, but then note that this girl comes into the world in a way that is similar to these great historical men, and yet there is a greatness of the girl, which is beyond the greatness of any of those others. Whether or not we have an accurate depiction of historically what happened is less important than the point that is being made. That God's action in our lady coming into the world bears a certain resemblance to a similarity to how other prophetic figures were raised up with the important difference that this one has a mission that goes beyond the mission of all of those others. And in that context of this miraculously conceived, miraculously born child coming into the old age of her elderly parents, what else do we see? The tired stump of Jesse. The tree that is old, withered and beyond the point of fruitfulness suddenly a shoot emerges, a flowering branch emerges, and her name is Mary. This also is what the pious author of the proto-Avengellium is lagging before us. As the time of the covenant has come forward and hope has grown old and tired, into that tired expectation, that tired, frustrated longing, suddenly a shoot emerges, a green shoot, which will be fruitful and bear life. The shoot is not Jesus, the shoot is our lady, and the fruit of a shoot bears is the savior of the world. How marvelous that is. And so then the issue is talking about the way that our lady from the very beginning of her life completely belongs to the Lord. And so there is this tradition now that is recorded, and we see for the first time of our lady being presented as an infant in the temple, we'll talk about the details of that in just a couple minutes. And why to grow up and be raised in the temple until she is of that age where she will be betrothed and why? Because the daughters of the house of David are those shoots from which the Lord, the Messiah, is to be born. We don't know historically that this was actually the practice. Again, I want to be very clear and very careful about that. So we do not know that historically this was the practice. It's not a bad way to think, and there are important lessons to be drawn from it. But in addition to that was the question of to whom will she be betrothed this virgin, this pure one? And so there is the search for the proper husband, and among those men who were being looked at was an older man named Joseph, who was a widower, who had children from a previous marriage. You see where we're going with this? It's one way of answering the question of the brothers and sisters of the Lord. And Joseph being a much older man, you also have the implied reality that his sexual energy is waning or spent. Those pictures you see of St. Joseph as an old man, this is the origin of those. And this became, and so all of a sudden now we have Joseph chosen by a miracle in the temple that all of the bachelors placed their staffs before the altar of God, one of which burst into bloom. That's why we have the flowering staff in Joseph's hand in our window in the church. That's why we put a flowering staff in Joseph's hand up at the rock of our lady. That was the sign that this widower is the one to whom God would entrust the virgin. And so note how that leads us right up to, and Joseph takes her to Nazareth, and the table is set for the Annunciation. But having been said, no, one is free to believe or not believe the historical outline that I've just given. The church has never granted it normative authority, okay? So just so we're careful about that. And so the question then becomes what do we do with this? But first is this, in the 14 and 1500s it was necessary for a papal intervention to correct certain tendencies that came out of this account, not the least of which was the fact that there was next to no devotion to Joseph in the church because of this distorted depiction of him as an elderly tired man. Holy, but was something that men, especially young men, could not identify with. This then at papal insistence is where the images of Joseph as a younger man, Joseph the worker, Joseph of the man with his virility and his life still ahead of him came back. And so the modern turning to say Joseph is the result of an intervention to correct the distorted view of Joseph that came out of this textual tradition. See, sometimes these ancient sources, wonderful as they are, they form the imagination so thoroughly we don't even realize that they block out other avenues. And that intervention by the Holy Father was important to also remind us that when we look at the details of this ancient account we want to do so without a sense of narrowly this is exactly how it happened. No, the account was never condemned and the church never said you can't think of Joseph that way. The Holy Father said was we also need to think of him another way. And that becomes very important. And so now all of that being said we turn to this incident of our lady being presented in the temple. The iconography of this across the centuries is fascinating, especially in the western church. You'll often see images of Joachim and Anne, the older parents with the young child and they're bringing her to the temple, the priests are at the top of the steps, the family is at the bottom and our lady is wearing white, often crowned with flowers like she's a little girl on the day of her first Holy Communion. The iconography in the west has that fascinating characteristic of the young virgin, an infant yet or a toddler, clothed in white, crowned with flowers and running up the steps to the temple. And it's a remarkable image of youthful enthusiasm, youthful energy and youthful purity that also serves the function of reminding the Christian faithful of the duty of the parents to bring their children to the temple. And the desire in a child's heart to be in the presence of God and know His goodness. And so what do we see? Our lady runs unimpeded up the steps. Why? What does the Lord say in the gospel? Do not impede them, let the children come to me. And so our lady is also then depicted as this example of the child who is allowed to run to the Lord, the child who seeks the Lord, whose heart desires the Lord. And in doing so, it becomes a reminder that in the modern temple of the church, one actually can come not just to be in the house of the Lord, but to meet and receive the Lord. What an image of First Holy Communion that becomes. How much we need to recover that today. The children brought and presented ready with the Lord waiting for them. And that moment where they leave their places and come forward. There's a reason why in stained glass windows or paintings in a number of churches, this depiction was present. And it wasn't merely out of this as a scene from our lady's life. There's something here that captures the mystery of the family. There's something here that captures the mystery of childhood. There's something here that captures that fundamental, innocent dynamism, which still lives in the human heart, however sin afflicted it may be, that longs to do exactly that. To run freely to the Lord. And so the first thing is when we speak of presentation, the question is this. If someone is presented, there must be somebody who is doing the presenting. And there must be someone to whom that presentation is being made. By definition, that is just simply how it works. If I'm presenting something, I am doing the presenting. And I am presenting it to someone, right? Good. So the first element of this is the family. The parents present the child. The child is not presented by the parents to the temple. The child is brought to the temple to be presented to the Lord. To know Him, to serve Him, and to grow in knowledge and service of Him. And so no, who does the presenting? The parents. What do they present? They present their child. To whom do they present their child to the Lord? And why? Because the church has long understood that with those first stirrings of our ability to reason and recognize and navigate the world around us, there comes that first obligation. However, young it happens that the heart should turn to the Lord. That the mind should turn to the Lord. And so here we see that as soon as she is able to do that, she is brought to the Lord that she may turn to Him and embrace Him. And when that is done in youth, when that is done at an early, early age, great things can truly happen. And so we see here in the example of the young virgin, this energy, this enthusiasm, this desire to be where the Lord is to be found. And so she runs up the steps, not to the priests, she runs to the Lord. She's met by the priests who are the agents of the Lord, but it's important to recognize that. In the same way, when children come to receive their first Holy Communion, on the one hand physically they come to the priest, but really they come to the Lord and the priest is there as his agent. But you know, this is something we really do as a people need to recover, that sense of the fundamental duty of the family to present the children to the Lord. And why? In Psalm 92, 91 in the Duay version of the Bible, there is a remarkable line at the conclusion of the Psalm that the church from an ancient time has applied specifically and directly to this incident of our lady being presented at the temple. And that is this. The just will flourish, plant it, plant it in the house of the Lord, it will grow in the courts of our God, bearing fruit even unto old age, vigorous, green and fruitful. By the presenting, for the planting, that is the other thing. When we present our young ones, when our lady is presented, the point is in no small measure that she is planted in the house of the Lord. And when something is planted, what does it do? It puts down roots. And it draws nourishment and life from the soil in which it is planted. And so note again now the implication of what faith formation, what regular involvement in a church really means. It is not simply a matter of bringing, it is a matter of planting. It is a matter of rooting. And why those who are planted in the house of God are those who will grow in the courts of the Lord and bear fruit across the length of their lives. And so note, what did we say earlier, that shoot, that springs from the fallen stump of Jesse? Well, the shoot must be planted. And that shoot is planted in the house of the Lord to grow strong and to draw wealth, richer the wealth of grace up from the rich soil of the temple, of the faith. How important that really is and why so that this life planted in the house of God will be a life that is strong, vigorous and fruitful, even into a lengthy old age, if need be. And so the fruitfulness of life, this remarkable fruitfulness of our lady, in no small measure, what do we see pointed to here? She is brought to the temple not merely to be shown, but to be planted. And so again, presending from the question of did it happen this way historically, note the point through her parents, our lady was planted in the rich soil of the faith of the people of God. And she grew, she rooted herself deeply in that soil of the covenant, that soil of the promise, that soil of the word, that soil of the will of God, that soil of the hope for salvation, and became fruitful. Growing up out of that soil, how wonderful, how wonderful indeed that is, and it's reflecting on exactly this point, one of the early fathers of the church observed this. The name Anna, Mary's mother, means grace. And he very wonderfully observed, and so we can see grace is the mother of the lady. Not a bad way of understanding, grace is the mother of the lady. The lady who will be filled with grace is the daughter of grace. The lady who will be full of grace, who is full of grace, comes into the world by the movement of grace. Grace is the mother of the lady. And by extension, we can talk about that, looking at our children, that in some levels, presending from the question of biologically who the mother is. They need to be the sons and daughters of grace as well. Grace must be the mother of the young one. Grace must be the mother of the older one, when our hearts are given birth into and by grace, life becomes different. So hidden in the mystery of simply the name, the presentation of our lady in the temple, how much we can discover. And then as Father Bernard so wonderfully pointed out in his hobbly at Mass today, but that's not the only presentation that's happening. Because our lady doesn't look back, she runs up the steps, and she goes inside so that she can present herself to the Lord. She can offer her heart to the Lord. She can present her eyes to look upon his greatness. She can present her ears to listen to his word. Again, note how marvelous that is, this initiative of first the parents bring the child. And why? For the purpose of the child learning how to present himself, how to present herself to the Lord. And now when we put it that way, note the issue with the word present is spelled exactly the same way as present. I can only present myself to you by being present to you. So again, note the issue, to present ourselves to the Lord requires not just that the Lord is present to me, but that I am actually present to him. And again, in a Catholic setting we do well to remember that because we speak over and over again about the presence of Jesus in the sacrament. We don't speak enough about our need to be present to the sacrament, about our need to be present to the Lord. It's one thing to say that the Lord is present to me, but what does that mean if I'm elsewhere? What does that mean if I'm physically in the building, but my heart, my mind, my spirit are off someplace else? Remember how presence requires attentiveness and so our lady comes and presents herself to the Lord, meaning that she is there to listen to him. She is there to gaze upon him. She is there to offer herself to him in his service, but all of that requires that she is present to him. So to quote Yogi Berra, who famously said half of life is just showing up. Here's a classic example because in order to be in the presence of the Lord, I have to be present. I have to show up. And so here we see that our lady wants to live in a way that she is present to the Lord. And so this tradition of her residing in the temple is not just a matter of talking about rootedness, it's an insistence that throughout her life, from the earliest time to her maturity, she lived in the presence of the Lord, regardless of how the historic details worked out. Her life up to the moment that Gabriel appeared and certainly afterwards was a life lived in the presence of the Lord. This in no small measure is likely why when Gabriel came to visit her, she wasn't afraid. Just about every other time an angel appears in sacred scripture, the one who meets the angel is frightened and overwhelmed, and our lady isn't. She's bothered by what the angel says, but the presence of the angel doesn't bother her at all. It's a remarkable moment, this moment where that seems ordinary to her. Gabriel's visit is not a surprise. She's not shocked that one of the ministers of the heavenly court would speak to her. She's puzzled and troubled by what he says, but not that he is there, not that he speaks in the first place. And what does that indicate except a heart that is present to the Lord, so present that lesser things do not overwhelm it, so present that she's ready to respond when he speaks. And this too then is part of the lesson that this old work is presenting to us by telling us the story in this way. And so no, none of this is to say it's a bad story, but one needs to learn how to look at it to see the treasure that's really placed there for us to discover. So our lady is that one who grows up, who lives in the presence of the Lord, and is rooted in the house of the Lord. Two marvelous ways of speaking about her, but there's still a third presentation. Now you're looking at me saying, "Father, come on. We got her parents and we got her." Who else is presenting her? God. This is not simply an act of Joachim and Anad, it is not simply an act of Mary. On this day in this mystery, God is presenting to the temple, that little one who is truly the house that he has made for himself. That also is happening. Our lady is presented not just in the temple, but to the temple. This masterwork of God's holiness is likewise being presented to his people. And why? Because God doesn't come to live in a building, unless it's that living building that he is made for his very own. And so note the irony here. The little girl who runs up the steps into that enormous building is that one who will hold within the small space of her womb, the God who is vaster than the heavens, that the temple in Jerusalem could never hope to contain. Note how marvelous this is, that as she rushes up the steps of the temple, there is suddenly a holiness in the temple that no prophet could ever break, that no servant ever brought, that no priest offering sacrifice could ever achieve as the sinless virgin runs up those steps. And why? Because she will be the mother of the one who is the sacrifice that saves us all. She will be that one where he will dwell on earth in a way that he was never present in the temple. Note again on some levels, and this is not God saying to the temple, you don't matter, you're no good, but this is also the Lord saying that there is greater than this here. And what your eyes see is small now, but something much greater, much vaster than anything taking place here will soon be alive in her. And why? Because now we come to the fourth presentation. We'll probably do this all day fighting presentations, but why? Because God will present salvation to the world through Mary. And so note, first he presents the one who will be the mother, because through the mother, through the virgin, he presents himself. The virgin comes up the steps of the temple presenting herself, because the Lord will speak to her and tell her that he will present himself to the world through her. And forth from her as if, from a bridal chamber, as if from a temple, as if from a tent, as if from a house. And now when we recognize this, we see something else. We see that in this complex way that our families engage their life in the church, that there is something of this broader sense of presentation going on to. We begin by bringing our children so that our children can learn to come and present themselves. Why? Because it's important to root them in the faith in the life of the church and its sacraments, so that they can learn to present themselves to the Lord that they might live truly in his presence. And why? Because as that is happening, even as the parents bring the child, and even as the child learns to come himself, this is also God presenting to his people, those others whom he would make fruitful in his house. See that's the other thing. All too often, we reduce the sacramental life of our families to mere family moments. There's first Holy Communion followed by the family party. There's baptism and the family gathers followed by the family party. There's confirmation followed by the family party, right? There's the wedding, and the friends and the family are there followed by the family party. And this is not to say that that's bad. But note how if we're not careful, we can begin that attitude that these are merely family things. It's a family rite of passage. It's what we do as a family. That's not bad. But it always involves more than that, these moments where our young ones are given the grace of God through the sacraments. Note how it's celebrated. The first thing that happens in baptism is the church asks the name of the child, and what the parents desire. The young one is presented, and in doing so, this is God also presenting to the community. This one is one of ours, not just one of this family, but one of ours. On the day of first Holy Communion, when the children come up, it is not just the moment where they have their intimate chance to receive Jesus, because they are also receiving communion with everybody else. And that is the Lord also presenting those young ones to the community, saying you're responsible for them too. Note how important that is, why? So that they can grow and bear fruit and be strong even into old age, and fruit not just for themselves, but for the people. And why? Because those little ones who receive the Lord, for example in Holy Communion, just like the adults who do, at the end of Mass are told to go and take the presence you've received and bring it to the world, because the Lord wants to continue presenting Himself to the world through those who He presents in His church. So there's a fundamentally marvelous dynamic here when we catch the fact that on the one hand, this is an action of the family. On the other hand, it is an action of our Lady. And yet running through it all is a greater action of God, which makes it all possible in the first place. All right, because the child that is presented in the temple, our Lady, and the proto-Aven Gellham makes it abundantly clear, has come into the world by the action of God. As all life does, we tend to forget that. And we become narrowly possessive over our children and our families. But the reality is, all of us come into the world as the fruit of the creative action of God. And that creative action of God is oriented to the saving action of God. And so again, we see this marvelous example of the family that has received the child coming to the temple. And what do they do? They surrender, not responsibility. They surrender ownership. She is our daughter, but her life belongs to you, Lord. Don't how powerful again that attitude is. The surrender of the parents is not an abdication of responsibility. And again, that's why we don't want to be too quick to narrowly historicize this account of details. The simple fact of the matter is Joachim and Anne remain the parents of that little girl. Joachim and Anne don't surrender their duties, their obligations, their responsibilities as parents. Rather what this account illustrates for us is they are very attentive to promptly see to the most important responsibility of a parent, which is to bring my child to the Lord. And make sure she gets close enough that she can run into his presence. And so again, what a marvelous, what a marvelous series of images were given. And as we see this, we can't help but look ahead to two things. Everything that happens in this incident of the presentation, everything that leads up to it and everything that comes out of it, is at the service of what will happen in Nazareth in the fullness of time, when God sends his son to be born of woman. And so note, we can't understand this incident of our ladies' presentation in the temple unless we see that it is directly ordered to Gabriel, coming to that place in Nazareth where our lady is found. Everything is directly ordered to that moment, where heaven will call and name her not merely the daughter of grace, but filled with grace. And in doing so, say you will conceive and bear a son. And as this happens, as Saint Matthew reminds us, this is the fulfillment of a promise that was made befall before our lady's earthly birth, some 700 years prior to that. When Isaiah the prophet came to A has the wicked king and said to him, "The Lord says He will give you a sign, be as bold as you want, ask for it, whether as high as the heavens or deep as the earth, ask for your sign." And as wicked hearts always do, it effects a false piety, "Oh, far be it from me. I'm not going to ask anything of the Lord." I couldn't do that. And you hear God sigh through the prophets. Every now and then God does that too. He doesn't just give us His grace, He gives us His sigh and frustration. So the prophet sighs and groans and says, "It's just not enough for you to tire everybody else out. Why must you exhaust me too?" Then the prophet says to him, "But you don't get to refuse." See, I was going to give you the chance to ask for something, but the sign is still going to come. But let me tell you what it's going to be. And so note, all of a sudden now, this is God saying, "Your interference doesn't rule the day. Your exhaustion, your fear, your selfishness, none of that rules the day. Your refusal to come to me doesn't stop me from doing what I need to do in the world." And so he says, "I'm going to give you a sign, whether you like it or not. The sign is coming." And what was the sign? Behold, not A, the Virgin will conceive. One of the things that the author of the Proto-Aventilium is doing by recounting our ladies early life in this way is he's taking great pains for us to recognize that this is the Virgin. And so everything, the question about who will be her husband, the question about bringing her to the temple that she grow up there, all of that is in the sense that this might well be the Virgin. And so what else is happening? Israel gets to see the Virgin on this day. She's brought out of her home, she's brought to the temple, and the Virgin, the Virgin who is the sign is made visible. The full sign is that the Virgin will conceive and bear a son. And note how the sign works. You'll know the Son if we know who the Virgin is, because the Son will come only by means of the Virgin. Again, just absolutely beautiful. And so what do we see then? Everything that is being recounted about the early life of our lady is at the surface of our coming to see she is the shoot which will bear fruit. She is the morning star which heralds the arrival of the dawn of salvation. And she is the dawn which heralds the rising of the Son of justice. Why do we say all of these things? Because she is the Virgin who will conceive. And that is the issue, the issue is the Virgin. Why? Because when I see the Virgin, I know where to be looking that I might see the arrival of the Son. And the prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 7 of his book is remarkable in that way. One sees first the Virgin and then one sees the Son as the child of the Virgin. Why? Because the Lord will present himself to the world through the Virgin. The Lord will present salvation to the world through the Virgin. All of this then is completed 40 days after the Virgin gives birth to the Son. And what happens? There is another presentation in the temple. And in the arms of the Virgin, the face of salvation is recognized, seen and celebrated. In the arms of the Virgin, the Lord fully and physically enters his temple. In the arms of the Virgin, the God to whom the sacrifices are made is right there in the midst of the sacrificing. In the arms of the Virgin, the great sacrifice which does what none of the sacrifices of the old block would ever do is present as well. In the arms of the Virgin, the Son presents himself to the Father and the Father presents his Son to the world by means of the Virgin. Which is why Simeon can say, "Dismiss your servant in peace, O Lord, my life is complete because I have seen, I have looked upon, the face of the salvation that you have prepared." This feast day looks forward to that moment. And in doing so, it allows us to have this beautiful way of looking at the essence of our families, of our children, and of ourselves in terms of how we relate to the Lord. In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.