Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Today we celebrate the Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple at Jerusalem. It comes from the tradition describing Mary as the miraculous child of Sts. Joachim and Anne, from a long line of blessed elderly people who had been unable to conceive in the Bible. Like the parents of Samuel, they dedicate this special child to God. Unlike all others, though, the child is a girl! Of course, this fact makes her conspicuous. The story goes that as Mary was sent to be accepted by the priests in the Temple for a group of maidens dedicated to prayer, that the three-year-old ascended the steps to the altar unassisted and without looking back to her parents. Another sign of her unique and auspicious vocation.
Just as Christ will locate a new and more beautiful temple prophesied by seers as the coming of the Messiah in His own Body, destroyed and raised up, so Mary is a kind of Temple. She, in conceiving and keeping her virginity intact, foreshadows new spiritual children in the age of the Church; she, freed from original sin by an act of Christ’s prevenient grace, foreshadows “our enemies have been crushed.” She becomes a temple that holds the holiest of holies, Jesus Christ, in her womb.
Our first reading recounts how Judas Maccabeus rededicated the Temple after purifying it from Gentiles profaning it. He establishes an annual festival (still commemorated in Judaism as Hannukah) that was first celebrated one year to the day it was defiled. In this way, he stamped out the day of greatest hurt with one of surpassing joy. Likewise, Mary, is the New Eve, the one whose yes cancels out our first mother’s no. Remember, that every sinner has a future, and that grace and the Holy Spirit can change our worst day into one of gladness.
Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections