A Homily for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord
Readings: Malachi 3:1-4 Hebrews 2:14-18 Luke 2:22-40
St. Luke sets part of his infancy narrative in the temple to show how this prophecy of Malachi came to fulfillment:
Suddenly there will come to the temple
the Lord whom you seek,
And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire (3:1).
But allow me to begin with a different messenger and a different temple.
A few years ago, at the conclusion of our diocesan Chrism Mass, a stranger approached me. She opened with: “Father Klein, you don’t know me. I went to school with your mother. My, but you look like her!”
“Really? Most people say I resemble my father more.”
“I can see that, but watching you on the altar, I saw your mother.”
“I look like my mother ‘on the altar’?”
“Yes, in your expression. You were thinking your way all through the Mass, just as she would have. But I knew your father as well. In fact, my parents took care of your two oldest uncles, Chet and Albert, for a few months, when your Grandmother Klein had her breakdown.”
“My grandmother had a breakdown?” What a revelation! Unfortunately, this was the moment my new friend decided that she had said too much.
She took her leave, responding to my astonishment at this news of my grandmother with a cheery, “I just wanted to say hello, and I’m so glad I did.”
I grew up in what I would call a high-strung home. With two out of three hyperactive kids and a working mother, that seemed reasonable enough. My mother came from a similar home. Generations run in grooves.
But my Grandma Klein, my father’s mother, was—like the song she used to sing—a comforting “Rock of Ages” in my childhood. I could not square the roly-poly, sit-on-my-lap-and-let-me-sing-to-you, never-raised-her-voice grandmother whom I had known with the notion of a breakdown.
Of course, anyone who raised five boys during the Great Depression, who was forced to move to town when the farm was lost and who buried one of those sons while he was still a boy is entitled to a breakdown. But I keep wondering about the transformation that must have occurred between the young mother my new acquaintance had known and the grandmother I remembered.
But of course, if we have any years on us, most of us have seen the mystery we call aging at work. As the years go by, we become more settled, more accepting, less prone to vices, more rooted in virtues—at least when things go well. There is no necessary law at work. Far from it, for the world is full of old fools. Better to say that with a bit of grace, we grow into wisdom.
Old people are more naturally religious than the young. No news there. Most of us come into this world with some talent and lots of energy. It takes time before we realize that we are like water on a rock to the world. We do not change it much, but the world wears us down, breaks our spirit and, by the grace of God, opens us to the Spirit.
Now let’s return to St. Luke’s temple.
There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.
This man was righteous and devout,
awaiting the consolation of Israel,
and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit
that he should not see death
before he had seen the Christ of the Lord (Lk 2:25-26).
And Simeon is not the only senior citizen haunting the temple.
There was also a prophetess, Anna,
the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.
She was advanced in years,
having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage,
and then as a widow until she was eighty-four.
She never left the temple,
but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer (Lk 2:36-37).
Church-going folk are often dismayed by the contemporary decline in attendance, especially if a child whom they love is not practicing the faith. That is quite understandable, but one thing has not changed. Most people, most of the time, follow the crowd, rather foolishly thinking that it must possess some wisdom they lack. But wisdom is a property of the mind, and the mob has no mind.
Lots of people went to church in the 1950s because lots of people went to church. In the 2020s lots of people do not go to church because lots of people do not go to church. In neither case was there some special insight. Far from it, folks were, and are, like sheep who follow the crowd.
What is interesting is that all of this was already known to the evangelists. The church has always known that she does not proclaim a Gospel in which Christ appears and everyone responds—in the depths of the heart, that is.
It has never been that way, and it never will be. Some see, hear and believe. Most just fall in line, which would be fine if the crowd was wandering toward salvation, but our Lord insisted that the path is narrow (Mt 7:13-14).
Indeed, stories found only in St. Luke repeatedly suggest that it is outsiders who find Christ, those cast out from the crowd.
- A cultured male priest refuses to believe the Good News, but an unlettered virgin opens herself to the Angel Gabriel (Lk 1:5-38).
- The Messiah is revealed to the poor and the powerless when shepherds are summoned to Bethlehem (Lk 2:11).
- The messenger of salvation enters the temple when only the elderly, who have fallen out of the race, are present (Lk 2:22-38).
- The tax collector Zaccheus is scorned by the righteous but not by Jesus (Lk 19:1-10).
- The first declaration that one has found the narrow path, that “today you will be with me in paradise” is made to the man on the cross whom we now call the Good Thief (Lk 23:43).
If only we knew the full stories of those who have gone before us! If we could see the challenges they faced and the salvation these troubles carried in their wake. There is so much we cannot know, so much known only to God and to those to whom God chooses to reveal himself.
Sorrow is the fruit of sin. It does not automatically lead to salvation. But by the grace of God, it might. One thing is clear. So often, it is those who have been sidelined by sorrow who are given the strength to repeat the words of Simeon, now the prayer that the church, in her wisdom, enjoins us to say each night before we close our eyes:
Now, Master, you may let your servant go
in peace, according to your word,
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples:
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and glory for your people Israel (Lk 2:29-32).
