Purification of the Blessed Virgin and Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

The Eternal Word, when born into the world, willed to conceal the splendors of His Divinity under His human nature, but not to such a degree as to prevent some flashes of its glory from illuminating His nativity and the first days of His life on earth, so that those who did not recognize Him as their God would be inexcusable. In His lowly crib He received the conjoined testimony of Heaven and of earth. Angels and men came to adore Him; the stars of the firmament and the beasts of the field gave witness to Him as the Creator and Lord of all things. The first few Gospel pages which speak of His infancy are a succession of contrasts or alternations between abasement and glorification. No sooner have the Kings of the East and their trains departed than we find Mary and Joseph making preparations for her, the Immaculate, to go to Jerusalem to receive the rite of purification after childbirth, designed for the fallen daughters of Eve, who conceive in sin and bring forth in sorrow, whereas Mary’s divine conception and joyous delivery had only enhanced the glory of her pure and spotless nature. Our Blessed Lady, however, would claim no exemption, but would imitate her Son, who had submitted to the law of circumcision ordained for sinners. By so doing she also gave an example of obedience to the established law of God; she paid honor to it, and removed all occasion of scandal. This rite of purification was to be accompanied by the oblation and redemption, for a few sicles,¹ of her First-Born Son,² of Him who had come to redeem the whole world by the priceless offering of His own Precious Blood. It might have been imagined that the gifts of the Magi would have enabled Joseph and Mary to present the offering of the rich, but they were not minded to apply them to this purpose. They made the offering of the poor, the two turtle-doves, and it is supposed that they divided what the Kings had brought between their indigent neighbors and the Temple of God at Jerusalem.

The morning of the fortieth day saw them preparing to leave the grotto, which had become a place sacred in their eyes. Possibly God may have favored them with a divine prescience that, having been consecrated by the presence of the Incarnate Word, and sanctified by so many heavenly mysteries, it was never to fall again into a like neglect, but, tended by the piety of the faithful, was afterwards to see a sanctuary raised over it which was to become a center of pilgrimage to the whole Christian world. Mary and Joseph, then, went forth, Mary bearing in her arms her Divine Son, and Joseph leading the ass laden with the few things which they carried with them, including the gifts for the Temple. As they cannot have been ignorant that they had become objects of search to the suspicious Herod, there was the more merit in this act of obedience to the Law, as fear might have suggested a speedy return into Galilee. But Mary and her holy spouse never acted on the impulse of feeling or passion. They followed God’s guidance, and committed the consequences to Him. Joseph, to whom it appertained to direct all the movements of the Holy Family, was himself a docile instrument in God’s hands. That some human fears for the safety of his precious charge must at times have pressed painfully on his tender heart we may well suppose, without detracting from his merit; nay, they even added to it. He would, doubtless, also in the same human way, derive some consolation from the reflection that, now that the Kings had returned without communicating to Herod the information he required, the very poverty and obscurity of himself and his blessed spouse would be a shield to her and to the Child, little imagining the sweeping massacre which the cruel tyrant would adopt to make sure of the new-born King not escaping destruction. But his great consolation and the never-failing source of his trust was the protecting arm of Providence.

Mary, out of reverence to her Divine Son, whom she was carrying to present as an oblation to the Eternal Father, wished to make the journey on foot, and even (so says Maria d’Agreda) to perform it barefoot; but this Joseph would not permit, and she obeyed him without remonstrance. Wearied by the way, when they had passed the Well of the Star, or of the Three Kings, Joseph besought her to rest herself under the friendly shade of a lordly terebinth, or turpentine-tree. Tradition has faithfully preserved this fact, and a beautiful legend attaches to it, that the tree bent its branches at the approach of Jesus to honor in Him the God of Nature. Pilgrims, from the earliest ages of the Church, used devoutly to kiss it, in memory of its having sheltered the Mother and the Divine Child;³ and in that tree we may see a figure both of Jesus and of Mary, for Wisdom, in Ecclesiasticus, says, “I have stretched out my branches as the turpentine-tree, and my branches are of honor and grace”.⁴ After resting a while, they resumed their way.

This journey from Bethlehem to the Holy City was the most solemn and sublime procession which earth had ever beheld, or which had ever entered the gates of the Temple, poor and mean as was its outward appearance, for it was accompanied invisibly by troops of angels, as a guard of honor; and how great is the splendor of these glorious princes of Heaven may be imagined when we remember that the sight of one alone, sitting on the stone at Christ’s monument, made the Roman soldiers who watched it become as dead men for fear. His countenance, St. Matthew tells us, was like lightning, and his raiment of dazzling whiteness.⁵ What, then, must have been the refulgence of thousands of these exalted beings! But, if their majesty was great, words fail when we consider the unspeakable grandeur of which they were only the attendants: the King of everlasting ages, His Mother the Queen of angels and of men, and her holy spouse who was honored with the title and office of father to the Son of God Himself. What Holy Church thinks of this august procession,—and where can we find a safer guide than the spirit of our mother, the Church, embodied in her ritual,—is shown by the procession she organizes to solemnize what we call Candlemas Day, once a day of obligation when England was Catholic—the thurifer going before with incense burning, the cross borne aloft by the sub-deacon following, then the clergy in their order, and the faithful—all, clergy, acolytes, and people, carrying lighted candles which have been previously blessed by the celebrant. And let us listen to the beautiful antiphon which is intoned as soon as the solemn words, “Procedamus in pace,” have been pronounced by the deacon, and the response, “In nomine Christi,” has been given by the choir: “Adorna thalamum tuum, Sion, et suscipe Regem Christum; amplectere Mariam, quæ est celestis porta; ipsa enim portat Regem gloriæ novi luminis; subsistit Virgo, adducens manibus Filium ante luciferum genitum, quem accipiens Simeon in ulnis suis, prædicavit populis Dominum esse vitæ et mortis, et Salvatorem mundi”—“Adorn thy chamber, O Sion, and receive Christ the King; embrace Mary, who is the celestial gate; for she bears the glorious King of the new light; remaining ever a Virgin, she brings in her hands the Son begotten before the day-star, whom Simeon, receiving into his arms, proclaimed to the people to be the Lord of life and death, and Savior of the world”.

Among the devout Israelites who were waiting at that time for the Redeemer’s advent was a holy old man named Simeon. His longing desire and heart’s prayer was that he should behold that day. His prayer had been granted, and he had received an answer from the Holy Ghost that “he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord”. Simeon was not a priest, but he was truly a prophet. “The Holy Ghost was in him” are the expressive words of Scripture;⁶ “in him,” making his soul a palace of light, and acting as a lamp to direct his ways. “Thy word,” says David, “is a lamp to my feet and a light to my paths.”⁷ Of such a man no act is fortuitous or meaningless; he “walks at large,” with the freedom of those who have escaped from the tyranny of self, because he has sought God’s commandments, not his own will and pleasure. God has become his inward guide; and so the Gospel says that Simeon “came by the Spirit into the Temple”. This whole Psalm, indeed, admirably describes the mind of such a man as Simeon, who has taken the testimonies of the Lord as an inheritance for ever, because they are the joy of his heart, and whose soul has fainted after His salvation.⁸ The law which the Virgin came to fulfill prescribed three things: (1) the purification of the mother; (2) the offering and redemption of the first-born son; (3) the oblation of a lamb by the rich, and of two turtle-doves or two young pigeons by the poor. At this rite the husband must be present also, joining in the offering. When, therefore, as the Evangelist says, “His parents brought in the Child Jesus to do for Him according to the custom of the Law,”⁹ Simeon at once knew Him by that inward revelation which brings assurance with it; not as the shepherds knew Him, from the miraculous vision of Angels and from hearing their heavenly announcement, but by the direct voice of the Spirit of God, who was ever abiding in him; and so “he took Him into his arms and blessed God,” and poured forth from the depth of his soul that canticle of the “Nunc dimittis” which we know so well.

St. Luke says: “His father and mother wondered at these things which were spoken concerning Him”;¹⁰ not that they did not know these high mysteries already, but to hear the great works of God published is ever to hear and know them afresh; and then the intuitive knowledge which God had given to this holy man, without the intervention of any sensible prodigy, was matter for deep and devout admiration; moreover, Simeon was the first to proclaim publicly that the Redeemer was come, come to His Temple, as the prophet Aggeus¹¹ had foretold, rendering its glory greater than that of the first. The adoring of the shepherds and that of the Kings of the East had taken place in a secluded cave of the earth, but the voice which proclaimed the Child “a light to the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of His people Israel,”¹² sounded in the courts of the Lord and before His holy altar. If few heard, it was because few were there, and still fewer attended to the words spoken to a poor mother and her babe. Simeon blessed both Mary and Joseph, but to Mary alone did he speak of the sign of contradiction which her Child was to become, and of the sword which was to pierce her soul,¹³ for Joseph was not to live to behold the Passion and Death of Jesus. When, indeed, the lance of the centurion pierced His side and penetrated the agonized soul of the Mother, Joseph was with Him in the Limbo of the Fathers, which had been transformed into Paradise by His presence. Nevertheless, we may be certain that the holy Patriarch deeply shared her sorrow when this prophecy, which, no doubt, brought into still more vivid light the prescience she already had of her Son’s sufferings, was addressed to her, a prescience which was never to leave her, but amidst all the joys of her maternity was to make her by anticipation the Mother of Dolors. Simeon predicted that Jesus was “set for the fall and for the resurrection of many”; not that He would be the efficient, direct, and positive cause of the ruin of the former, as He is of the salvation of the latter, but only the incidental, indirect, and negative cause; inasmuch as, in order not to perish, they must believe in Jesus, love Jesus, obey Jesus, and they would obstinately refuse to believe in Him, love Him, and obey Him, and would thus be lost eternally. In the same manner would He be a sign of contradiction, in that many would adore Him as God, bless and serve Him faithfully, and many would deny Him and blaspheme Him, and instead of serving Him would prefer to serve the devil, their malicious enemy. This sad presage embittered also the soul of Mary, and was to her a continual martyrdom, which the tender soul of Joseph shared, though his eyes were to be closed in death before their accomplishment began to manifest itself in the hatred and hostility of the Jews against our Lord. Indeed, it must have been a source of additional poignant grief to his generous and loving heart to know—as he must have known long before his death—that when this prophecy was verified he, the protector of Jesus and Mary, would not be there to defend and console them.

To temper a little the pain inflicted on the hearts of Mary and Joseph by Simeon’s prophecy, God directed the steps of an ancient and holy woman into the Temple. It was Anna the Prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser. After the death of her husband, with whom she had lived seven years, she had made the Temple her continual abode, serving God with fastings and prayers night and day.¹⁴ Mary must have been well known to her; indeed, it is supposed that this venerable woman had been the instructor and trainer of the young maidens brought up within the precincts of God’s House. Coming in at the moment when Simeon was restoring the Divine Babe to His Mother, she also was ravished in spirit and gave testimony to Him as the true Messias. Nor was her testimony limited to that moment, for we are told that she spoke of Him to all who were looking for the redemption of Israel. But what of the priests of the Lord? As the humble Virgin advanced with her Infant in her arms to perform the three acts prescribed by the Law, was there not one of them to behold in spirit the immense glory with which the presence of the Lord of all, the Orient from on high, the Desired of all nations, was filling the Temple? We do not hear of one. The Virgin placed herself on her knees, having given the Divine Babe to Joseph. Most humble in her aspect, with eyes modestly cast down, her head inclined towards the ground, and her hands joined over her bosom, she awaited the coming of the priest. He came, prayed over her; and thus did she seem to be purified who was herself brighter than the sun, fairer than the moon, and purer than the stars of heaven.

The offering and redemption of the Child followed. As the inner court of the temple was interdicted to women, Mary remained kneeling, and in her heart and mind accompanying the solemn oblation made of her Divine Son to the Eternal Father, while Joseph, bearing Him in his arms, went into the Court of the Priests to present Him. Jesus, High-Priest according to the order of Melchisedech, enters into His Temple, and the band of Levites who minister there do not hasten to receive Him with reverence, do not surround Him with their homage, do not honor Him even by a look. They had no eyes to see, so He hid His Face from them. The unworthiness of the Levitical priesthood God had already declared by the mouth of the prophet Malachias: “The son honoreth the father, and the servant his master: if, then, I be a father, where is My honor? and if I be a master, where is My fear?”¹⁵ And by the same prophet He had exposed the cause of their blindness and irreverence, namely, their covetousness, their pride, and their love of worldly things. Therefore He had declared to those priests, who despised His name, that He had no pleasure in them, and would receive no gifts at their hands.¹⁶ More than thirty years later, with His own divine lips, He was to reprove them for these very vices, and announce to them their approaching rejection: “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof”.¹⁷

A priest drew nigh to take the Divine Child and offer Him to the Lord; and never had oblation so acceptable been made to God, but, in truth, it was Jesus, Priest and Victim, who, through the Spirit¹⁸ and by the hands of Mary and Joseph, made an unspotted offering of Himself to His Eternal Father. Joseph then paid the small sum of money required, to redeem Him who was the Redeemer of all,¹⁹ and took back the Divine Victim to feed and tend Him, and rear Him up to complete the sacrifice on Calvary. All that remained now to perform was to offer the doves, the one as a holocaust, the other as a sin-offering. These innocent creatures Joseph consigns to the priest, who ascends with them the steps of the Altar of Holocausts to make the oblation. Mary had accompanied in spirit all these solemn acts of religion; but within this Court of the Priests no sign occurred such as those which had just before marked the arrival of the Holy Family at their entrance into the Temple. Among the priests not a few were courtier-like partisans of Herod; possibly there might be some who were hereafter to sit in the Sanhedrim which was to pronounce Jesus guilty of death. Such men were not worthy to behold a ray of the glory of the Lord.

All the ceremonies being completed, Joseph returned to the outer court, and restored the Divine Infant to His Mother’s arms. Then they departed. If it be true that a portion of the offerings of the Magi had been set apart by them as a gift for the Temple, Joseph will have taken it there alone, secretly and silently, so as to attract no notice. It would have been an inconsistency to allow it to accompany the public offering of the poor which they made; such a display also would not have harmonized with the character which marks all the acts of Mary and Joseph, namely, a profound and retiring humility. It would, moreover, have attracted to them an attention which must have been perilous under present circumstances. The Virgin most prudent and the discreet and thoughtful Joseph, her spouse, were sure to shun carefully any such risk. They came to Jerusalem in obedience to an ordinance of God; in order to perform God’s will natural fears must be laid aside, but when all had been accomplished, the safety of the Divine Infant must have been their one leading thought. It is scarcely probable, therefore, that they remained in the neighborhood of the jealous tyrant longer than was necessary to complete the religious rite which had brought them to Jerusalem, but they will have at once turned their minds, if not their steps, towards the homeward journey.