 |
| Miniature of the Presentation, "Menologion of Basil II" (Constantinople, 10th-11th c.) [Vatican Library, MS Vat.gr. 1613] |
"When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons'." —Luke 2:22–24
I
Today is the feast commemorating the presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple and the purification of his mother, described in Luke 2:22–39 as taking place forty days after his birth in accordance with the Law (cf. Lev. 12:1–4). Known in the west as either the Presentation of the Lord or the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the feast is one of the oldest in the church, observed locally in Jerusalem from early in the fourth century. Originally observed on February 14, the feast is now universally kept on February 2. In the west, the feast has been commonly known as “Candlemas” owing to the distinctive western rite of a procession with blessed and lighted candles into the church, a tradition which likely dates to the pontificate of Pope Sergius (687–701). In the east, the feast is one of the Twelve Great Feasts and is called “The Meeting” (hypapante) because it commemorates our Lord’s meeting with Simeon “the God-Receiver” (Theodochos) and the prophetess Anna.
II
“[Christ’s] wish was to save us all completely and for our sake he bowed the heavens and came down. When by his deeds, words and sufferings he had pointed out the ways of salvation, he went up to heaven again, drawing after him those who trusted in him. His aim was to grant perfect redemption not just to the nature which he had assumed from us in inseparable union, but to each one of those who believed in him. This he has done and continues to do, reconciling each of us through himself to the Father, bringing each one back to obedience and thoroughly healing our disobedience.
 |
| Detail of icon of the Presentation (Novgorod, 15th c.) |
“[…] Christ renewed the human nature he took from us and by what he did and suffered in his person united with our nature, he revealed it as sanctified, justified and completely obedient to the Father. Among the things he did and suffered are the events we celebrate today, when he went up, or was taken up, to the ancient Temple for purification, was met by the God-bearing Simeon, and was proclaimed by Anna, who spent her whole life attending to the Temple.
“After the Savior was born of the Virgin and circumcised on the eighth day according to the law, then, as Luke the evangelist says, ‘when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord’ (Luke 2:22). He is circumcised according to the law, brought to Jerusalem according to the law, presented to the Lord as it is written in the law and a sacrifice is offered as the law demands.
“Notice that the Creator and Lord of the law is completely obedient to the law. What does he achieve by this? He makes our nature obedient in all things to the Father, he completely heals us of its disobedience and transforms the curse on it into a blessing. As all human nature was in Adam, so it is in Christ. All who received their being from the earthly Adam have returned to the earth and been brought down, alas, to Hades. But, according to the Apostle, through the heavenly Adam we have all been called up to heaven and made worthy of its glory and grace. Secretly for the present, for it says ‘your life is hid with Christ in God.’ But, ‘when Christ shall appear,’ at his second manifestation and coming, 'then shall ye all appear with him in glory' (Col. 3:3). What does it mean by ‘all’? All those who have received the adoption of sons in Christ by the Spirit, and have proved by their deeds that they are his spiritual children.”
— St. Gregory Palamas (1296–1359), from a homily given on the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord, between 1347 and 1359, in Thessalonica.*
* English translation: Homily 5.2–5 in Saint Gregory Palamas: The Homilies, ed. Christopher Veniamin (Mount Thabor Publishing, 2009).
No comments:
Post a Comment