Pastor’s Desk – The Presentation of the Lord

The feast of the Presentation of the Lord is celebrated forty days after the feast of Christmas, as it was traditionally understood that Jesus was presented in the Temple forty days after his birth. This day is also known as Candlemas, because candles are blessed on this day to remind us that Jesus is the light of the world and the light of our life. This is in keeping with Simeon’s reference to the child Jesus in the gospel reading as a ‘light to enlighten the pagans and the glory of your people Israel’.

Simeon’s prayer beginning, ‘Now, Master, you can let your servant go in peace’, has become an integral element of the Night Prayer of the Church. Simeon recognized the true identity of the child that the young couple from Nazareth brought into the Temple. He realized who had just entered the Temple, who had entered his life. Looking at this new born child, he could see the ‘salvation’ that God had been preparing for all the nations to see. Simeon recognized that the light of God’s love was shining through the face of this child, a light that would enlighten the pagans and bring glory to Israel.

The gospel reading suggests that Simeon had this level of insight into the child of Joseph and Mary because the Holy Spirit rested on him and he came to the child prompted by the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who allows us to see Jesus as he really is. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, says, ‘No one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God’ and declares, ‘we have received… the Spirit that is from God, so that we can understand the gifts bestowed on us by God’. We need the Holy Spirit to appreciate the gifts that God has given us, especially God’s greatest gift, his beloved Son, who is with us until the end of time. On this feast, we invite the Holy Spirit to rest upon us afresh, as he rested on Simeon, so that, like him, we may recognize the many ways that the risen Lord enters our lives.

Fr Martin Hogan