THE WORD AND THE FEAST
November 21, 2023: Remembering the Presentation of Mary in the Temple
Zacchaeus' episode in the Gospel is an evergreen example of an encounter that transforms a person. As St. Paul would say, 'if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation' (2Cor 5:17). When we allow the Lord to really encounter us, the Lord transforms the whole person. Nothing remains the same. Everything is new because we begin to see everything from the perspective of the Lord.
As Pope Francis said in his first encyclical Lumen Fidei, faith is not just to see Jesus, it is to see with the eyes of Jesus (LF 18). When our faith is authentic, the whole perspective changes. What seems to be important, what seems to be necessary for someone may seem totally secondary to me, because I see as the Lord does, because I think as the Lord does, I love as the Lord does.
Eleazar in the first reading demonstrates the same to us - 'such pretense is not worthy of our time of life' (2 Mac 6:24), he says, caring the least to preserve his life, because he did not want to lead the others astray from God. His priorities were different from that of the rulers who were persecuting them, the officials who were executing orders or the society that stood around them, because he was a man of faith!
Today we remember the event of Mary being presented in the Temple - why does the Church remember this event though it is not part of the Biblical account. There is a very important reason - highly spiritual and simply logical. Mary, as far as we see in the Gospels, seems to be totally resigned to God's will and absolutely obedient to God's voice. Where does this begin from - the answer is the memory we celebrate today. The parents offered her to the Lord, thus inculcating within her mind and heart, that she belonged to God and God alone. That was reflected all her life.
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