Today's Scripture Reading for the Eucharistic Liturgy
We might well look at this event in Jesus' early life as another Epiphany. Mary and Joseph fulfilled their duties as good Jewish parents. Tradition and Jewish ritual required that parents bring a new-born male child to the temple to be consecrated to the God.
When Mary and Joseph arrived at the temple, they were not met by a rabbi, as most of the artistic renditions of this event depict, but by man recognized in the community as "righteous and devout," Simeon by name. He was not a temple official. Today we would call him a "devout parishioner." Somehow Luke knew or learned that Simeon had a special relationship with the Holy Spirit. He knew he would come to know "the Christ of the Lord."
What is the message for us today? Simply this: Jesus, the Son of God, chose from the outset of his life on earth to reveal himself to ordinary people. Even on the day of his birth, so it seems, the first people to arrive, to come to see what had happened that night, were men of the fields, the shepherds, truly most ordinary people.
Like Simeon and Anna, also a devout Jewish woman present when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to temple, and the shepherds, we are invited by the Holy Spirit to stop our regular business to listen to the Holy Spirit, to listen to the voice of God speaking to us in our hearts. Today this event reminds us we are in Ordinary Time. We are walking on a measured pace journey coming to better understand who Jesus is ... for each one of us! He comes to us, to ordinary people with a message of God's will and his redeeming act of love.
When Mary and Joseph arrived at the temple, they were not met by a rabbi, as most of the artistic renditions of this event depict, but by man recognized in the community as "righteous and devout," Simeon by name. He was not a temple official. Today we would call him a "devout parishioner." Somehow Luke knew or learned that Simeon had a special relationship with the Holy Spirit. He knew he would come to know "the Christ of the Lord."
What is the message for us today? Simply this: Jesus, the Son of God, chose from the outset of his life on earth to reveal himself to ordinary people. Even on the day of his birth, so it seems, the first people to arrive, to come to see what had happened that night, were men of the fields, the shepherds, truly most ordinary people.
Like Simeon and Anna, also a devout Jewish woman present when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to temple, and the shepherds, we are invited by the Holy Spirit to stop our regular business to listen to the Holy Spirit, to listen to the voice of God speaking to us in our hearts. Today this event reminds us we are in Ordinary Time. We are walking on a measured pace journey coming to better understand who Jesus is ... for each one of us! He comes to us, to ordinary people with a message of God's will and his redeeming act of love.
