6th Sunday of the Year A 2020

 6^th. Sunday of Year (A)

(Sirach 15:15-20; 1^st. Corinthians 2:6-10; Matthew 5:17-37)

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As we look around our society today we see some amazing things not only happening, but increasingly being accepted as part of normal modern behaviour.  We hear constantly about ‘racism’ of all kinds and the banter of centuries in the United Kingdom is now racist for a people becoming more and more neurotically sensitive and over-feminised by the calls to talk, talk, about one’s ailments, feelings, and needs!! We hear about babies being ‘acquired’ and fostered by gay or lesbian couples, a baby girl with two men or vice-versa; we know of groups of people lavishing much effort and showing great compassion for suffering children, whilst our society --- as a whole --- is most assiduously putting the very youngest to death for the most selfish of reasons.  Children are so very decisive and divisive: being well loved by some parents willing to lavish money on their offspring yet failing to form a deep loving relationship of shared life, experience, and understanding with them; we hear of mothers who find their children more of a troublesome care than a personal joy, and of others who are less than willing to devote their own selves and their personal financial and sporting careers to their child’s human and personal formation, development, and well-being.  Today, most paradoxically, children – the beautiful fruit of God-blessed human sexual and married love -- can easily be regarded and treated almost as a commodity or even as an alien invader.

Along with such attitudes to children we also read of people in modern society who so love animals that they will threaten -- even maiming or killing -- others who do not subscribe to their radical, not to say fanatical, way of thinking; and it is part of very ordinary, world-wide practice, for subversive organizations to bomb, maim, and kill fellow human beings – ordinary, uninvolved and innocent, people -- in order to draw attention to their particular causes without any sense of guilt, let alone compassion. Even in our own towns and villages, some young people, perhaps, will have little compunction about stabbing or kicking someone near to death if they become involved somewhere in violence; while city yobs will not scruple to mug, beat, rape and kill old and defenceless men, women, and even children, to satisfy their rampant passions of all sorts.

Sorrowfully recalling these things, and many others like them, to mind, we wonder at times what is happening to our world.  How have people come to behave in such ways?  How can a sheep, cut-in-half and preserved in a glass tank, be plugged as human art but not recognized as God’s marvellous creation?  How is it that an apparently formless group of bricks or concrete blocks can be piled up by some supposedly-gifted but also possibly disturbed mind, and then be put forward and even sponsored for the admiration of the more or less normally gifted and balanced public?

How difficult, how very difficult it must be to bring up young people, and for young people themselves to grow to authentic maturity, in such a society!   Who can protect, guide and sustain them in right ways?   How can they not learn to walk in accordance with all that goes on around them?

And so, very many people today say about their own faults and failings, ‘I couldn’t do anything else, I had no choice ..’  Sin, personal fault, is no longer acknowledged, accepted, ‘it’ has always been caused by someone else, ‘it’ has always been forced on the culprit.

Such thoughts occupied the mind of the author of our first reading who wrote:

Do not say ‘It was the Lord’s doing that I went astray.       Before each person are life and death, stretch out your hand for whichever you choose.  Great is the wisdom of the Lord, His eyes are on those who fear Him, and He knows every human action.

Jesus, our Lord and God-given Saviour to guide us through the desert of this sinful world, Jesus the all-holy Son of God made man, has even stronger words for us His followers and disciples, as your heard in the Gospel reading, words of both warning and most solemn promise, words that both challenge and inspire:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Such words of Jesus were regarded exclusively as words of warning and threat by the Pharisees and Scribes of Jesus’ time, who preferred their position of authority among the Chosen People to the prospect of God’s Kingdom coming among them where all men and women of good-will would be able to know and love God and attain the salvation and fulfilment He promised. The Pharisees and Scribes interpreted and adapted the Law given to Moses according to their own human traditions and they were most unwilling to look forward to blessings ... even though they were promised by God Himself ... because their own present advantages of power and prestige filled their hearts and minds.  That is why Jesus went on to tell us:

I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

People of God, we Catholics are in a fluctuating and transitional situation today.  We have experienced times when it was widespread among Catholics to imitate the Scribes and Pharisees by looking upon God’s commandments as more of a warning and threat than as an opportunity, a challenge, and a promise.  In their days the Pharisees had, with great effort and industry, built up a hedge as they called it, a hedge of human prescriptions and practices which were meant to preserve the children of Israel from failing in their observance of the commandments of the Law as understood by the traditions and teaching of their Pharisee leaders and self-appointed guides along God’s ways.  Jesus spoke with feeling about such people and practices saying:

They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. (Matthew 23:4)

There he was sympathizing with those thus burdened; at another time He openly attacked the Pharisees for concocting such loads for others (Mark 7:6-8):

Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honour Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.  They worship Me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'  You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."

So too in the Church at particular epochs the commandments of men have been brought in to shore-up, so to speak, the commandments of God and of His Church: practices of devotion were thought up and recommended to, urged upon, others, which again were meant to protect the commandments and prevent sin of course, but which also in practice ended up by stifling others.  The result was that many, especially of the young, either rebelled or gave up in ‘despair’.  That situation then provoked a reaction from some well-meaning clerics and teachers of various sorts who tried to help the lapsed or lapsing return to the practice of the Faith by watering-down Mother Church’s moral law.  Unfortunately, at times they went on to not only make lighter the load of human commandments and, but also to water down those of God: and today we, as a result, many find themselves in a state of flux, not knowing when to be firm and unyielding or how to adapt and develop.

There are two great commandments in our practice of the Christian and Catholic way of life.  The one was much cited in past centuries, and was first given us in the Scriptures, where Samuel said, in the name of the Lord, to the errant king Saul:

Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice.

Today, that command still remains as valid as ever for Pope, priests and people, for each of us and for our children.

The second great commandment was given us by the example of the Lord Jesus and from His words, but expressed perhaps most memorably for us by St. Paul (1 Cor 13:11-13) when he wrote:

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

The legitimate developments of modern theology help us towards the fulfilment of this commandment of love by strongly reminding us that we, being made in the image of God, are free; indeed, we are essentially made for freedom.  In this, modern theology is only restating words from our Lord Himself Who said to some Jews aspiring to follow Him as His disciples:

If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.  (John 8:31-32)

So, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:36)

This teaching of Jesus was reiterated with emphasis by St. Paul in his 2^nd. letter to the Corinthians (3:17) and also to the Galatians (5:1):

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

However, we must be aware, dear People of God, that the word “freedom” is both much misunderstood and widely abused today, and therefore we must be careful to understand aright the true Christian appreciation of freedom: its whole purpose and meaning is to enable us, both truly and fully, in both a human and divine way, to love and serve God in and above all things, and our neighbour as ourselves; and in so doing, to enable each of us individually to become our own authentic self as planned, willed, and loved, by God.

That is the great challenge and promise of our life here on earth, to learn -- despite the morass and chaos brought about by our sins past and present – how, under the guidance and power of the Spirit of Jesus, to love God the Father, and become in Jesus, His true children.  And in order to fulfil that glorious privilege and calling we have to hold firm both to God’s commandments and to our divine endowment of freedom.  We cannot become children of God by disobeying His commandments, commands Jesus did not come to abolish but to fulfil; we cannot walk in the ways of Jesus by ignoring His teaching in the Scriptures opened up to us by His Church, for we are only brought to life in Jesus by the Spirit as members of His Body, the Church.   We must therefore, hold firm to God’s commandments in His Church.  We must also hold firm to our freedom with regard to the customs, the popular practices and persuasions, of men: for we have been made free for God: we can choose among human prescriptions as we will, but always and only with this one aim and aspiration in mind: to learn love God with our whole mind, heart, soul, and strength in Jesus and freely by the Spirit. 

Notice that I say learn to love God, because none of us, of ourselves, knows how to love Him aright.  That is one of the reasons Mother Church has been given to us and we to her: we have to learn how to love God as He wants to be loved, and we can only learn that with our brethren in the Church, which is the Body of Christ and our Mother, and which, as such, alone is permanently endowed with the presence of the Holy Spirit of Love.  For the Spirit alone, the Holy Spirit of Love, given us by Jesus and working in and through Mother Church can be part of the life of each one of us, can make us holy in Jesus for the Father.  Human practices can help but they may also hinder, and they can never make us holy.  Holiness is loving God in self-forgetfulness; true sanctity is delighting in God above all and in all.  It is a gift, a grace, from the One who is Personally the Gift of God.  That is the only way in which our righteousness can and will surpass the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees as Jesus demanded.  Their righteousness was admirable in many respects but it was a legal, human, and ultimately, a self-contrived righteousness.  Our righteousness, to be authentic, can only be received as a gift from the Father, given by the Spirit, to those whose supreme desire is to be found as His true children in the kingdom of heaven, in Jesus, His only-begotten and most beloved, Son.

As Moses was leading Israel across the lonely desert, guided, protected, and nourished by God alone, towards the Promised Land where Israel would be surrounded by pagan powers and pagan practices, he wanted so much to guide and protect his people, that he said to them shortly before his death:

See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me; observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations.  Be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not let (these laws and decrees) slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. (Deut. 4:1, 5-9) 

5th Sunday of the Year A 2020

5^th. Sunday of the Year (A)

(Isaiah 58:7-10; 1^st. Corinthians 2:1-5; Matthew 5:13-16.)

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, if you take your mind back to that first reading from the prophet Isaiah you will recall the words:

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn and your wound shall quickly be healed.  Your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear-guard.

In that reading a healing is being referred to: God healing us from the wound of sin and the sore of pride, and we are told that by His help men will recover, and their recovery will be backed up subsequently by the glory of the Lord supporting them.  All that will be God’s GIFT, thanks to His saving mercy.  God’s healing is not like the work of some picture restorer, cleaning away the grime of ages and revealing the original beauty of some painting in all its integrity;  His restoring work is the gift of eternal life in Jesus by the Spirit, something previously only foreshadowed for Adam and Eve before being irrevocably lost by our forebears’ sin.

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, your wound shall quickly be healed.  Your vindication shall go before you and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

This healing of the wound of sin and the sore of pride thanks to God’s merciful gift to us in Jesus, this abiding and sure protection given by His glory which follows us, results from the gift of eternal life and is the source and the shield of our earthly “righteousness” that makes us “the salt of the earth”, and “the light of the world”.  And this our Gifted-Light, must shine in the sight of men, not as a witness to our personal integrity, but -- as Jesus said -- to “glorify your Father in heaven”, and thus will we become living members of Him Who summed up His whole life in the words:

(Father) I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do (John 17:4),

of Him Who wanted even His act of dying on the Cross to serve the same end (Jn 17:1):

Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.  

And so, in order to fulfil our vocation as members of that beloved Son, we have to recognise that we are special, not of ourselves but by God’s gift to us in Jesus, and we have to remain special, because we have a work to do with Jesus for the Father:

You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavour, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.

Our realising that “righteousness” is the gift of God thus becomes tantamount to awareness of our “responsibility”: we cannot allow our life in Christ to become tasteless by adopting behaviour that belongs to the world, where “my personal and professional integrity” are held in high esteem and the humility of Christian righteousness is contemned.

If we look more closely at Jesus’ choice of words to describe His disciples: ‘salt of the earth’ and ‘light of the world’ we will understand that both ‘salt’ and ‘light’ are self-less words, so to speak: salt in the ancient world being widely used to preserve food items, and even today to give ‘taste’ to food; of itself salt is relatively nothing.  Likewise, light serves to illuminate whatever is there to be seen by us; and again, of itself, apart from the things it illuminates, light is not of any personal use.  It is that self-less character which Jesus would like to see in His disciples, and which was well exemplified in the first two readings, where Isaiah advised:

If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday;

and St. Paul told his readers and converts that he had deliberately sought to centre their faith in God by affirming the essential importance of Jesus sent by God, and making himself and his own preaching as unpretentious as possible:

When I came to you, brothers, proclaiming the mystery of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom, my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive (words of) wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

Paul, ‘salt of the earth’ sought to ‘preserve’ his converts by proclaiming and glorifying not himself but Jesus, for God.

One of the characteristics of some modern, self-styled religious people is that they look to get something out of religion for themselves here and now.  They usually want to hear and experience something new, preferably indeed, something mysterious and oriental, that will, hopefully, free them from the weariness of what they have long been aware of in our Western society yet have never known or experienced; they want to feel the power and excitement of being swept along by charged communal emotions or the bliss of being surrounded and lulled by a scented and gently swirling fog of mystery.  Such people are centred on their own earthly, supposedly-spiritual, feelings and experiences, and they end up finding Christianity, which speaks of a transcendent God, quite boring; especially, indeed, when the Christian message is proclaimed with clarity to their minds, whereas they want to have their emotions strongly stirred and clamouring but with their minds left relatively -- that is comfortably and peacefully -- disengaged.

The apostle Paul said that He preached the mystery of God in such a way that his convert’s faith should rest, not on the wisdom or cleverness of men who can speak words almost salacious in their ability to delight and sway the hearts of those who hear them, but on the power of God.  And there, you might think, there is something that needs explaining, for displays of Godly power are, surely, just what many of us Catholic and Christian people rejoice to hear of and perhaps want to see and experience?

Yes, that is indeed the case.  But the power of God of which St. Paul speaks is never displayed: it is, indeed, sometimes exercised for the encouragement and benefit of people in particular circumstances hearing the testimony of God for the first time, or, striving to live according to His teaching.  However, God's exercise of power on such occasions and for such people is not a display of spiritual fireworks to make all who witness it gape, but rather a rare and extraordinary visible manifestation of what is God’s continuous invisible battle through the Church and by His Spirit for the minds and hearts of men and women of all times and all cultures against the abusive and tyrannical rule of Satan; and there is no power other than that normally unseen power of God’s grace in Jesus and the Church that can rescue mankind from their fallen, sinful, state.  Today, in our affluent, sinful and adulterous society, we see the awful consequences arising for ordinary individuals when society as a whole acquiesces under the power of Satan and opts for the wages of sin, with the result that ever more and more disgusting and degrading exuberances of evil appear in our midst, and against which the miserable fig-leaves of human self-righteousness and the ‘rule of law’ are powerless to control, let alone redress.

People of God, Christians and above all Catholics have to try to be salt of the earth and light of the world.  Salt was used, as I said, in the ancient world to preserve food from corruption; and those disciples of Jesus who do not resist the corruption of evil, have become like tasteless salt, as Jesus Himself said:

Good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.

Likewise, light is meant to show people the way, to lead them in the right direction; Catholics who do not, in any way, lead along that way, but rather only and always follow in the wake of the world, whose consistent excuse is that 'what everyone else is doing can't be that bad', are not true Catholics, not authentic disciples of Jesus, at all.  And yet so many formerly nominal Catholic people today do not fight against moral corruption, allowing themselves to positively delight in ‘their own eggs’ -- the pleasures of darkness and self-esteem – people, that is, who turn most deliberately from the light and follow the pagan majority into fornication, divorce, adultery, contraception and, above all, into abortion; they steal, they malign, and they lie.  Some even do such things and then consummate their sin by receiving the Eucharist without contrition, without confession, but with oodles of piteous self-deceit or disgusting hypocrisy and pseudo ‘personal integrity’.

People of God, be simple and sincere in all your dealings, and do not fail to be quietly but totally confident in Jesus’ promise that, because you are humbly trying to be His true disciples, you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and all the witness that you bear for Jesus will bring forth fruit in His good time that is both ‘pleasant and desirable’ for God’s people.  Do not be eaten up with concern for yourself and your standing among men, but rather -- trying to be true to Jesus and His teaching in Mother Church -- trust in God and give Him a free hand to take care of you, for He is the unfailing Shepherd of His flock.  In that way the prophecy of Isaiah will be verified in you and for you:

Your light shall break forth like the dawn, your wound shall quickly be healed; your vindication shall go before you, and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.  Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and He will say, 'Here I am.'

           

The Presentation of the Lord 2020

THE PRESENTATION OF THE LORD

(Mal. 3:1-4; Hebrews 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40)

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There are a few things we should note about St. Luke’s gospel account of Mary and Joseph bringing the Child Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem.  First of all, since it was not necessary for them to bring the Child to the Temple, why did they choose to do so?  Secondly, Luke tells us that:

When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, they took Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord,”

However, the Law prescribes that the firstborn of man should be ‘redeemed’, not ‘presented’:

You shall dedicate to the LORD every newborn that opens the womb, and every first-born male of your animals will belong to the LORD.  Every human firstborn of your sons you must redeem. (Exodus 13:12-13)

The price of redemption was five Temple shekels, the money going towards the upkeep of the Temple worship and the support of the priests of Levi who had no land in Israel in order to be totally devoted to the worship of the Lord.  Since no redemption price was paid for Jesus -- only the sacrificial offering of a pair of turtle doves for Mary’s purification according to the Law -- there is no question of Mary’s first-born Son being bought back, redeemed, as the Law laid down, and that is why Luke changed the wording of the Law and spoke of Mary and Joseph presenting the infant Jesus to the Lord.   That very presentation -- doing something unique for this unique Gift from God -- was the reason for their bringing the Child to the Temple in Jerusalem: in the mind of Mary there was no question of ‘redeeming’ -- buying Him back -- from God, on the contrary, in acknowledgement of His ‘gifting’ to her (and to us) by God, Mary was, of her own initiative and  free will, bringing Him to God’s Temple in order in order to present Him to His Father: to offer Him along with the childhood-long years of her own worshipful service of maternal love, cherishing, and teaching, to present Him to His Father, God, for God‘s purposes on earth:

They took Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord (just as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male who opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord” ), and to offer (for Mary’s purification) the sacrifice of “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons” in accordance with the dictate of the law of the Lord.

Just as Samuel had been given to the Lord in the old Temple of Shiloh by his mother Hannah in thanksgiving that the opprobrium of childlessness had been taken from her, so here Jesus is presented by Mary to the Lord in the Temple at Jerusalem.   He was consecrated to the Father before His birth on earth and in His birth; here His Mother acknowledges God’s claim on her human Son and, yielding her own claims upon Him, presents Him to His Father in the Temple, with a sense of gratitude immeasurably greater than that of Hannah (Lk:46-48):

Mary said: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour.   For He has looked upon His handmaid’s lowliness.”

See how wonderfully that holy Mother co-operates with her Son in the work of our salvation!  At this, her very first opportunity, Mary does what her Son cannot yet Himself physically do: for, graciously aware of the depths of her own lowliness she offers Him – out of heart-felt personal gratitude and with wondrous sensitivity to the working of the Spirit of the Son within her -- to His Father of Whom we are told in the letter to the Hebrews (10: 5-7):

For this reason, when He came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You prepared for Me; holocausts and sin offerings You took no delight in.  Then I said, ‘As is written of Me in the scroll, Behold, I come to do Your will, O God.’”

Here Mary is shown as the perfect realization of the ‘daughter of Sion’, following in the steps of Abraham, who, when leading his son Isaac on the way to sacrifice on Mount Zion, said (Genesis 22:8):

            My son, God will provide for Himself the sheep for the burnt offering.

Abraham became the father of Israel and indeed our father in faith because he had been willing and prepared to sacrifice his only, beloved, son Isaac, in obedience to God.  However, at the point of sacrifice, the Lord intervened and said:

Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.  (Genesis 22:12)

Isaac was not the lamb of God, nor was Abraham‘s obedient -- though heavy -- heart a full foreshadowing of the future.  For, when the old covenant was come to its fulfilment, Mary, the supreme daughter of Abraham was offering, presenting, her Son entirely to God His Father with a most wonderfully grateful and rejoicing heart:

Mary said: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour.

The New Covenant was at hand, and this Presentation of the Infant Jesus is the very first fully, purely, Christian act, Christian sacrificial act … Mary offering her Son to His Father for His, indeed soon to be, both Their, purpose(s).  As the annotators of the of ‘The Jewish Annotated New Testament’ make perfectly clear, “no law prescribes this presentation, presenting children at the Temple is not a recognized custom”. 

It is true that Mary did not as yet know what would be asked of her: she did not foresee the Crucifixion.  Nevertheless, her offering to God was given in total faith and sincerity, complete trust and self-abandonment.  Therefore, having presented Him to the Lord, she was not called to leave Him in the Temple as Hannah had done with Samuel.  Samuel had been left with Eli the high priest; here, there was none worthy to bring up Jesus save Mary His immaculate mother, and therefore He went back with her to Nazareth and began learning, as we are told:

To grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; with the grace of God upon Him.

God accepted at the Presentation Mary’s offering of her Son, as an implicitly sacrificial, TOTALLY CHRISTIAN offering made under the supreme guidance and sublime inspiration of the Spirit of her Son, the Holy Spirit of Truth and of Love, already working fully, freely, and unrestrainedly, in her.  In the subsequent hidden years of life in Nazareth she helped her Son become a man before God:

           He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a             merciful and faithful high priest. (Hebrews 2:17)

Unbeknown to Mary, the Spirit of her Son was already leading her, preparing her, for the time when He would leave her, first of all to enter upon His public mission, and when, finally, He would be taken from her in the Crucifixion.  This preparation began to be revealed to Mary almost immediately after she had presented her Son in the Temple, for the prophet Simeon came upon the scene and said to her:

Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed -- and a sword will pierce even your own soul -- to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.

And we can glimpse how gently God would lead her over the years ahead, for, lest those words of Simeon should hang around in her memory like some small but threatening cloud on the distant horizon, the prophetess Anna came shortly after Simeon with a paean of praise for the Child and for God:

             She began giving thanks to God, and continued to speak of (the Child) to all                 those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

It was with such mysterious words of wonder, joy, and hope that Mary and Joseph:

            returned to Galilee, to their own city of Nazareth.

The work of our redemption was beginning with God and man, One in Jesus; and with Mary co-operating in wondrous responsiveness to the Spirit, both in the birth, and now in the Presentation, of her Son.  This presentation of her Son by Mary was no blind gesture, rather it was the occasion when she seized with both hands a blessing offered her by God, affirming it most solemnly in the Temple at Jerusalem; and then, over the subsequent thirty years,  confirming it by her daily humble faith and prayerful trust under the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit as He prepared her to be able to fully and finally live out the offering she had so spontaneously and whole-heartedly made in the Temple.

It is frequently like that with us, People of God.  We can be called, invited, to respond to God with decisive self-commitment, and that moment is not the time to want to think out, anticipate and foresee, all that might result from such an invitation.   God wants our response of humble trust and total commitment; for He Himself will enable us to carry out what He has encouraged and invited us to take on.  Mary was totally pure, and that does not simply mean sin-less, it also means totally self-less before God, totally unselfish in her response to His will … God often wants to find something of that purity in us her children too.