Engaging the Gospel – Luke 18:1-8

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C): Gospel – Luke 18:1-8

Today’s Gospel “is centered on one of the qualities of prayer: it is necessary to pray always without ceasing and with the patience of faith” (Catechism paragraph 2613).

Through the parable of the widow, whose sheer persistence wears down the dishonest judge, Jesus encourages us to keep praying, no matter what difficulties we have in prayer:

When we begin to pray, a thousand labors or cares thought to be urgent vie for priority; once again, it is the moment of truth for the heart: what is its real love? (2732)

We tend to get distracted (2729), or lazy (2733), or even discouraged if we don’t get the results we want.

What is the image of God that motivates our prayer: an instrument to be used? Or the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? (2735)

In fact,

In the New Covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father Who is good beyond measure, with His Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit…Thus the life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God and in communion with Him (2565).

If we understand prayer in that light, and not only as a recitation of words, it is possible to pray always.

As St. Therese of Lisieux observed,

for me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven; it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy (quoted in 2558).

Question for reflection: In what ways have I witnessed the power of prayer?

Engaging the Gospel – Luke 11:1-13

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C): Gospel – Luke 11:1-13

“The meaning of prayer in Christ’s ministry” is emphasized throughout Luke’s Gospel (Catechism paragraph 2600), but especially in today’s passage.

Jesus encourages us to pray persistently and confidently to the Father, trusting that He will give us whatever is best for us.

“Prayer and Christian life are inseparable” (2745). We must not only believe in our faith, and celebrate it at Mass, but we must also “live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer” (2558).

“Prayer is the life of the new heart. It ought to animate us at every moment. But we tend to forget Him Who is our life and our all” (2697).

Hence the Church’s sacred Tradition helps us by setting out “certain rhythms of praying intended to nourish continual prayer” – i.e., “morning and evening prayer, grace before and after meals, the Liturgy of the Hours,” and of course Sunday Mass, along with the great feasts of the year (2698).

Even so, we often find it difficult to pray faithfully. “Against our dullness and laziness, the battle of prayer is that of humble, trusting, and persevering love” (2742).

Let us have recourse to the Holy Spirit, “the interior Master of Christian prayer…To be sure, there are as many paths of prayer as there are persons who pray, but it is the same Spirit acting in all and with all” (2672).

Question for reflection: How might I seek to deepen my prayer life?

Engaging the Gospel – Luke 10:38-42

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C): Gospel – Luke 10:38-42

Today’s readings revolve around the theme of hospitality, or how we treat God Himself as our guest.

In the first reading from Genesis, Abraham waits attentively on his three mysterious guests, a divine visitation prefiguring the revelation of the Holy Trinity.

In the Gospel, Martha also hosts a divine visitor in Jesus, but she is too absorbed in, and overburdened by, her activity, to be attentive to Him. Meanwhile, her sister, Mary, offers hospitality, not by serving, but by listening intently to Jesus. When Martha complains that Mary isn’t helping, Jesus gently tells her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing.”

As St John Paul II observed,

How can we not perceive in this episode the reminder of the primacy of the spiritual life, of the need to be nourished with the Word of God which gives light and savor to our daily routine.

It is an invitation which is particularly opportune for the summer period. Holidays and vacation time, in fact, can help to balance activism with contemplation, haste with natural rhythms, great noise with the healing peace of silence.

— Angelus of July 22, 2001.

We too have a divine guest, the Holy Spirit, Who dwells within us — let us always be mindful of His presence.

Question for reflection: When have I been so busy that I lost sight of what was truly important?

Engaging the Gospel – Most Holy Trinity

Most Holy Trinity: Gospel – John 16:12-15

God’s interior life as Holy Trinity is “a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone, or even to Israel’s faith, before the Incarnation of God’s Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit,” as the Catechism notes (237):

The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – reveals Himself to men and reconciles and unites with Himself those who turn away from sin (234).

As St. Gregory of Nazianzus (d. 389) wrote,

the Old Testament proclaimed the Father clearly, but the Son more obscurely. The New Testament revealed the Son and gave us a glimpse of the divinity of the Spirit. Now the Spirit dwells among us and grants us a clearer vision of Himself (quoted in 684).

Through the revelation of the Holy Trinity, we see that God exists in an eternal relationship of love, and He “freely wills to communicate the glory of His blessed life” (257) to us:

By the grace of Baptism in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we are called to share in the life of the Blessed Trinity, here on earth in the obscurity of faith, and after death in eternal light (265).

Question for reflection: When have I felt that God was leading me patiently into a deeper knowledge of Him?

Engaging the Gospel – Pentecost

Gospel – John 7:37-39 (Vigil), (Year C) John 20:19-23 or John 14:15-16, 23b-26

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit fulfills Old Testament prophecy, and continues in the life of the Church, as the Catechism explains:

In the Old Testament the prophets announced that the Spirit of the Lord would rest on the hoped-for Messiah for His saving mission…[Jesus’] whole life and His whole mission are carried out in total communion with the Holy Spirit Whom the Father gives Him “without measure.”

This fullness of the Spirit was not to remain uniquely the Messiah’s, but was to be communicated to the whole messianic people…a promise which [Christ] fulfilled first on Easter Sunday and then more strikingly at Pentecost.

–Catechism paragraphs 1286-87

From that time on, the apostles, in fulfillment of Christ’s will, imparted to the newly baptized by the laying on of hands the gift of the Spirit that completes the grace of Baptism…The imposition of hands is rightly recognized by the Catholic tradition as the origin of the sacrament of Confirmation, which in a certain way perpetuates the grace of Pentecost in the Church.

–Paul VI, quoted in Catechism 1288

Through the anointing of the sacrament of Confirmation, we receive the indelible “mark, the seal of the Holy Spirit. A seal is a symbol of a person, a sign of personal authority, or ownership of an object” (1295).

“This seal of the Holy Spirit marks our total belonging to Christ, our enrollment in His service for ever, as well as the promise of divine protection in the great eschatological trial” (1296).

The “effect of the sacrament of Confirmation is the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost” (1303).

Question for reflection: How have I experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in my life?

 

Engaging the Gospel – Sixth Sunday of Easter

6th Sunday of Easter: Gospel – John 14:23-29

Jesus tells the disciples that the Father will send the Holy Spirit to them. The Catechism explains:

Before His Passover, Jesus announced the sending of ‘another Paraclete’ (Advocate), the Holy Spirit. At work since creation, having previously spoken through the prophets, the Spirit will now be with and in the disciples, to teach them and guide them into all the truth.

–paragraph 243.

This knowledge of faith is possible only in the Holy Spirit: to be in touch with Christ, we must first have been touched by the Holy Spirit. He comes to meet us and kindles faith in us (683).

The Spirit manifests the risen Lord to them, recalls His word to them, and opens their minds to the understanding of His death and resurrection. He makes present the mystery of Christ, supremely in the Eucharist…(737).

The Holy Spirit, whose anointing permeates our whole being, is the interior Master of Christian prayer (2672).

The gift of the Spirit ushers in a new era in the ‘dispensation of the mystery’ – the age of the Church, during which Christ manifests, makes present, and communicates His work of salvation through the liturgy of His Church, until He comes (1076).

Question for reflection: When have I been comforted by a timely reminder of Jesus’ words?

Engaging the Gospel – Fifth Sunday of Easter

5th Sunday of Easter (Year C): Gospel – John 13:31-33a, 34-35

Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”

The Catechism teaches:

The entire Law of the Gospel is contained in the ‘new commandment’ of Jesus, to love one another as He has loved us (paragraph 1970).

The New Law is called a law of love because it makes us act out of the love infused by the Holy Spirit, rather than from fear; a law of grace, because it confers the strength of grace to act, by means of faith and the sacraments; a law of freedom…lets us pass from the condition of a servant…to that of a friend of Christ…or even to the status of son and heir (1972).

Love, like the Body of Christ, is indivisible; we cannot love the God we cannot see if we do not love the brother or sister we do see (2840).

It is impossible to keep the Lord’s commandment by imitating the divine model from outside; there has to be a vital participation, coming from the depths of the heart, in the holiness and the mercy and the love of our God. Only the Spirit by Whom we live can make ours the same mind that was in Christ Jesus (2842).

Question for reflection: Why do I sometimes fail to love others as I should?

Engaging the Gospel – Third Sunday of Lent

3rd Sunday of Lent (Year C): Gospel – Luke 13:1-9

Like the fig tree that has failed to produce any fruit for the landowner in this parable, we disappoint God when we fail to respond to His love.

For His part, God lavishes even more care upon us to help us bear fruit. In the parable, this special care – or grace – is symbolized by the gardener’s offer to cultivate the ground around the barren tree:

Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to His call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life. Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life (Catechism paragraphs 1996-97).

“God’s free initiative demands man’s free response” – either we choose to enter “freely into the communion of love” (2002), or we choose to cut ourselves off from it, counting “the offer of God’s grace as nothing” (678).

Jesus warns us of the eternal consequences of our choice. If the fig tree remains barren, even after the gardener’s extra attention, it will be cut down:

By rejecting grace in this life, one already judges oneself, receives according to one’s works, and can even condemn oneself for all eternity by rejecting the Spirit of love (679).

Question for reflection: How might I respond more generously to God’s nurturing care?

Engaging the Gospel – Second Sunday of Lent

2nd Sunday of Lent (Year C): Gospel – Luke 9:28b-36

“For a moment Jesus discloses His divine glory” in His Transfiguration (Catechism paragraph 555), evoking the theophanies, or manifestations of God, in the Old Testament.

Through the presence of the cloud, the appearance of Moses and Elijah, and its setting on a mountain, the Transfiguration calls to mind, and yet transcends, these earlier divine manifestations to the people of Israel.

“In the theophanies of the Old Testament, the cloud, now obscure, now luminous, reveals the living and saving God, while veiling the transcendence of His glory” (697).

“Christian tradition has always recognized that God’s Word allowed Himself to be seen and heard in these theophanies, in which the cloud of the Holy Spirit both revealed Him and concealed Him in its shadow” (707).

In the Old Testament, “Elijah, like Moses before him, hides in a cleft of the rock until the mysterious presence of God has passed by” (2583). In the New Testament, with the Word made flesh in Jesus, God manifests Himself in a radically new way.

Hence “only on the mountain of the Transfiguration will Moses and Elijah behold the unveiled face of Him Whom they sought; the light of the knowledge of the glory of God shines in the face of Christ” (2583).

Question for reflection: What leads me to reflect upon the majesty of God?

Engaging the Gospel – Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C): Gospel – Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21

Jesus reveals that He is the fulfillment of prophecy

“In the Old Testament, the prophets announced that the Spirit of the Lord would rest on the hoped-for Messiah for his saving mission” (Catechism paragraph 1286).

The book of the prophet Isaiah, in particular, reveals the characteristics of the Messiah. “This is why Christ inaugurates the proclamation of the Good News” by reading Isaiah 61:1-2 to those in attendance at the Nazareth synagogue (714).

The very title of Messiah – which means “anointed” in Hebrew, and is translated into Greek as Christos – signifies a “divine mission” (436).

St. Irenaeus, writing in the second century, considered the anointing from the perspective of the Holy Trinity: “The One Who anointed is the Father, the One Who was anointed is the Son, and He was anointed with the Spirit Who is the anointing” (quoted in 438).

Question for reflection: When did I first truly embrace Jesus as my Savior?

Engaging the Gospel – Baptism of the Lord

Baptism of the Lord (Year C): Gospel – Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

“Jesus’ public life begins with His baptism by John in the Jordan” (Catechism paragraph 535).

Because the Holy Spirit is visibly present as a dove descending upon Jesus, and the Father proclaims Him as His beloved Son, the baptism of Jesus is another aspect of His “epiphany,” or “the manifestation of Jesus as Messiah of Israel and Son of God” (535).

“The Spirit Who had hovered over the waters of the first creation descended then on the Christ as a prelude of the new creation” (1224).

Christ transformed Baptism into a sacrament, which purifies us from sin, fills us with sanctifying grace, and brings us into this new creation “ushered in by Christ’s Resurrection” (2174). The baptized person is made “a new creature, an adopted son of God, who has become a partaker of the divine nature, member of Christ and co-heir with Him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit” (1265).

As St. Hilary of Poitiers wrote in the mid-fourth century,

Everything that happened to Christ lets us know that, after the bath of water [in baptism], the Holy Spirit swoops down upon us from high heaven and that, adopted by the Father’s voice, we become sons of God.

— quoted in paragraph 537.

Let us always strive to live in accordance with our baptismal dignity.

Question for reflection: When have I felt especially close to God?

Engaging the Gospel – Fourth Sunday of Advent

Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year C): Gospel – Luke 1:39-45

Because the Virgin Mary had just conceived Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, her “visitation to Elizabeth thus became a visit from God to His people” (Catechism paragraph 717).

“Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as ‘the mother of my Lord’” (495).

We join in Elizabeth’s greeting whenever we say the “Hail Mary,” which includes key phrases from this Gospel passage:

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth is the first in the long succession of generations who have called Mary blessed….Mary is blessed among women because she believed in the fulfillment of the Lord’s word (2676).

Because she gives us Jesus, her son, Mary is Mother of God and our mother (2677).

Because of Mary’s singular cooperation with the action of the Holy Spirit, the Church loves to pray in communion with the Virgin Mary, to magnify with her the great things the Lord has done for her, and to entrust supplications and praises to her (2682).

In this way we honor God, Who Himself has assigned her this mission in salvation history:

Mary’s role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it (964).

What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ (487).

Question for reflection: How have I welcomed Mary in my own life?

Engaging the Gospel – Second Sunday of Advent

Second Sunday of Advent (Year C): Gospel – Luke 3:1-6

John the Baptist proclaims a baptism of repentance, and in so doing, prepares the way for the coming Messiah, Jesus.

“In John, the precursor, the Holy Spirit completes the work of making ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Catechism paragraph 718).

At the same time, with John, “the Holy Spirit begins the restoration to man of the divine likeness, prefiguring what He would achieve with and in Christ” (720):

The human heart is heavy and hardened. God must give man a new heart. Conversion is first of all a work of the grace of God Who makes our hearts return to Him….This same Spirit Who brings sin to light is also the Consoler Who gives the human heart grace for repentance and conversion (1432-33).

Benedict XVI elucidates today’s Gospel with the help of two sublime Church Fathers — Sts Ambrose and Augustine:

Tomorrow will be the liturgical Memorial of St Ambrose, the great Bishop of Milan. I take from him a comment on this Gospel text: “The Son of God,” he writes, “before gathering the Church together, acts first of all in His humble servant. Thus St Luke rightly says that the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness, because the Church was not born from people, but from the Word.”

Here then is the meaning: the Word of God is the subject that moves history, inspires the prophets, prepares the way for the Lord and convokes the Church. Jesus Himself is the divine Word Who was made flesh in Mary’s virginal womb: in Him God was fully revealed, He told us, and gave us His all, offering to us the precious gifts of His truth and mercy. St Ambrose then continues in his commentary: “Thus the Word came down so that the earth, which was previously a desert, might produce its fruit for us.”

— Angelus of December 6, 2009.

St Augustine comments: “John is the voice, but the Lord is the Word Who was in the beginning (cf. Jn 1:1). John is the voice that lasts for a time; from the beginning Christ is the Word Who lives for ever. Take away the word, the meaning, and what is the voice? Where there is no understanding, there is only a meaningless sound. The voice without the word strikes the ear but does not build up the heart.”

Today it is up to us to listen to that voice so as to make room for Jesus, the Word Who saves us, and to welcome Him into our hearts.

— Angelus of December 9, 2012.

Question for reflection: In what ways have I experienced a call to repentance?

Prayer of Intercession

Based upon Catechism paragraphs 2634-36:

Intercession derives from the Latin for “go between,” with the sense of intervening on behalf of someone. As the root word suggests, intercession is a form of prayer in which we ask God to help others, offering Him our petitions for their sake.

Intercessory prayer is an act of love, for we are truly seeking the good of others by praying to God on their behalf. In so doing, we exhibit a “heart attuned to God’s mercy.”

More astonishingly, we are thereby caught up in the mystery of God’s own life, where intercessory prayer wells up within the depths of the Most Holy Trinity. Jesus, the Eternal Son of God, continuously prays to the Father for us, as does the Holy Spirit. We enter into this dynamic of divine mercy whenever we pray for others, and especially when we pray for our enemies, as Jesus taught us.

Most often, however, our intercessory prayer will involve those closest to us, as we beg the Lord for the needs of our families, friends, neighbors, fellow members of the Body of Christ. We may even feel our faith stretched if our intercession doesn’t seem to help, if changes don’t occur for the better.

But in these difficulties, we must remember that God always respects the freedom of others. Our petition may require a certain level of openness or receptivity on another’s part, and if that person is not ready at a given point, the Lord will not force the issue. Rather, He will offer His grace according to His inexhaustible patience with us.

For that reason, we should never give up praying for someone, no matter how impossible the case may seem. God may be moving us to pray, so that He will cause it to bear fruit when the time is ripe.

 

Engaging the Gospel – Most Holy Trinity

Most Holy Trinity (Year B): Gospel – Matthew 28:16-20

The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity touches us personally in the deepest core of our being. This revelation – that there is one God, in three divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is the heart of our faith. “It is the mystery of God in Himself” (Catechism 234) as well as how we are drawn into, and participate in, that divine life (1997).

God’s “innermost secret” is that He “is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and He has destined us to share in that exchange” (221). For this reason the eternal Son of the Father became man in Christ (460).

In today’s Gospel, Christ instructs the disciples to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, illustrating how “the revealed truth of the Holy Trinity has been at the very root of the Church’s living faith, principally by means of Baptism” (249).

This is logical because it is through Baptism that we are welcomed into the intimacy of God’s own life (683). The Father adopts us “as His children in His only Son: by Baptism, He incorporates us into the Body of His Christ; through the anointing of His Spirit…He makes us other ‘Christs’” (2782).

“Hence the whole Christian life” is Trinitarian in its essence: “Everyone who glorifies the Father does so through the Son in the Holy Spirit; everyone who follows Christ does so because the Father draws him and the Spirit moves him” (259).

Question: When do I remember that God dwells within me?

Engaging the Gospel – Pentecost

Pentecost: Gospel – John 7:37-39 (Vigil), John 20:19-23 or John 15:26-27, 16:12-15

More than just an historical event, Pentecost is also a reality in our own lives: through the sacrament of Confirmation, we too receive “the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost” (Catechism 1302).

In the Holy Spirit, “God shares Himself as love” and as gift, Benedict XVI observed. “The Holy Spirit is God eternally giving Himself; like a never-ending spring He pours forth nothing less than Himself.”

He lavishes His gifts upon us:

the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of right judgment and courage, the spirit of knowledge and reverence…the spirit of wonder and awe. These gifts of the Spirit — each of which, as Saint Francis de Sales reminds us, is a way to participate in the one love of God — are neither prizes nor rewards. They are freely given. And they require only one response on the part of the receiver: I accept!

…Let us invoke the Holy Spirit: He is the artisan of God’s works. Let his gifts shape you! Just as the Church travels the same journey with all humanity, so too you are called to exercise the Spirit’s gifts amidst the ups and downs of your daily life…Let it be sustained by prayer and nurtured by the sacraments, and thus be a source of inspiration and help to those around you.

…In accepting the power of the Holy Spirit you too can transform your families, communities and nations. Set free the gifts!

— Vigil during World Youth Day, July 19, 2008.

Question for reflection: How am I using the spiritual gifts entrusted to me by the Holy Spirit?

Misapprehensions about Prayer

Based upon Catechism paragraphs 2725-2728:

Although prayer is simple, it still requires an effort on our part to respond to the loving God Who calls us to Himself. This often involves a struggle to overcome our own weaknesses and difficulties, including faulty notions of prayer that can get in the way.

If we are obsessed with productivity, prayer can seem like just another item to be checked off our “to do” list, or even a waste of time. And because we live in an entertainment culture, surrounded by a constant flood of sounds and images, we may well find prayer boring.

But such views miss the point of prayer.

It is not merely a mental activity on our part, for us to measure its usefulness or evaluate whether it gives us pleasure in this earthly life. Rather, prayer is a true correspondence with the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Through prayer we consent to open ourselves up to God, Who accomplishes what He wills within us, and works to transform our souls, pouring His grace into us and making us fit for heaven.

For that reason, we must not become discouraged or disillusioned by what we might think of as failure in prayer. As long as we continue to make the effort, and keep trying again if we fall off in our prayer life from time to time, God delights in us.

Engaging the Gospel – Second Sunday of Lent

Second Sunday of Lent (Year B): Gospel – Mark 9:2-10

The Transfiguration is rich in meaning on several levels, beginning with its timing. Christ’s divine glory was made manifest during the Jewish Feast of Sukkoth. Commemorating Israel’s time of wandering in the desert after the Exodus, living in tents (“sukkoth”), this feast had messianic overtones: the Jewish people believed that it foreshadowed the coming age of the Messiah.

Jesus fulfills this hope, as Benedict XVI observes:

Indeed, the Lord has pitched the tent of His body among us and has thus inaugurated the messianic age…Jesus is the holy tent above whom the cloud of God’s presence now stands.

— Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. 1, pp. 315-16.

The presence of Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration demonstrates Jesus’ fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures. They represent the Law and the Prophets, which proclaimed the Messiah’s coming. Although Moses and Elijah had encounters with God in the Old Testament, “only on the mountain of the Transfiguration” did they “behold the unveiled face of Him Whom they sought” – in Christ (Catechism paragraph 2583).

Moreover, the Transfiguration gives us a glimpse of the Holy Trinity.

As St. Thomas Aquinas noted, “The whole Trinity appeared: the Father in the voice; the Son in the man; the Spirit in the shining cloud” (quoted in paragraph 555).

Question for reflection: In what ways do I listen to the Lord?

Engaging the Gospel – Luke 2:22-40

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary & Joseph (Year B): Gospel – Luke 2:22-40

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

“The presentation of Jesus in the Temple shows him to be the firstborn Son who belongs to the Lord,” as the Catechism teaches (paragraph 529).

Benedict XVI observes a crucial detail about St. Luke’s language. Unlike the custom to “redeem” the firstborn by a payment, this Presentation only confirms Jesus’ total dedication to God:

Evidently Luke intends to say that instead of being “redeemed” and restored to His parents, this Child was personally handed over to God in the Temple, given over completely to God. The verb paristanai, here translated as “to present,” also means “to offer,” in the way that sacrifices in the Temple were “offered.”

…Luke has nothing to say regarding the act of “redemption” prescribed by the law. In its place we find the exact opposite: the Child is handed over to God, and from now on belongs to Him completely. None of the aforementioned acts prescribed by the law required an appearance in the Temple.

…Here, in the place of encounter between God and His people, instead of the reclamation of the first-born, what happens is that Jesus is publicly handed over to God, His Father.

— Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. 3, pp. 82-83.

The Presentation itself becomes an encounter between the baby Jesus and the devout pair of Simeon and Anna, who embody the piety of Israel.

“With Simeon and Anna, all Israel awaits its encounter with the Savior – the name given to this event in the Byzantine tradition” (Catechism paragraph 529).

Simeon and Anna belong to the “small Remnant, the people of the poor, who await in hope the consolation of Israel and the redemption of Jerusalem” (711), and their hope is fulfilled when they meet the infant Jesus in the Temple.

Both Simeon and Anna are themselves wholly attuned to the Lord, as Benedict points out. Living intentionally for God, they are docile to the Holy Spirit and receptive to His inspiration.

Question for reflection: How might I be more generous in giving myself to the Lord?

The Awesome Truth about Christmas

The Nativity Scene at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Lexington, Ky.

Are we so accustomed to Christmas that we overlook the shocking truth of what we’re actually celebrating?

Christmas, “Christ’s Mass,” marks the birth of Our Lord. What a startling fact: God has become man to redeem us! God the Son, the Eternal Word of the Father, holds His arms out to us as a newborn baby!

Pope St. Leo the Great (d. 461) describes the mind-boggling awesomeness:

He comes down from the throne of heaven…Invisible in His own nature, He became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, He chose to come within our grasp. Existing before time began, He began to exist at a moment in time. Lord of the universe, He hid His infinite glory, and took the nature of a servant. Incapable of suffering as God, He did not refuse to be a man, capable of suffering. Immortal, He chose to be subject to the laws of death.

Leo’s words are recalled especially for our March 25 celebration of the Annunciation, when the Blessed Virgin Mary accepted her role in salvation history, the Holy Spirit overshadowed her, and she conceived Jesus — the precise instant of the Incarnation, the enfleshment, of the Lord.

God went to such extraordinary lengths to seek us out, cultivate a relationship with us, and save us so that we may enjoy eternal life with Him.

That in turn calls for a response from us, to welcome the Lord into every aspect of our lives. Can’t we respond with greater love and fidelity to the One Who has loved us infinitely?