The Purification of our Blessed Mother

According to our blessed Abott Guerenger, is as follows:

'The Law commanded that a woman who had given birth to a son should not approach the Tabernacle for the term of forty days; after which time she was to offer a sacrifice for her purification. She was to offer up a lamb as a holocaust, and a turtle or dove as a sin-offering. But if she were poor, and could not provide a lamb, she was to offer in its stead a second turtle or dove.'

Go figure! She was offering the Lamb in the tabernacle, but offer two doves as the Law required. Yet, the Abott continues:

'If who considered the spirit of these legal enactments, and why God required the ceremony of Purification, it was evident that she was not bound to them. They for whom these laws had been made were espoused to men; Mary was the chaste Spouse of the Holy Ghost, a Virgin in conceiving and a Virgin in giving birth to her Son; but it received an incalculable increase by her carrying the God of all sanctity in her womb, and bringing him into this world. Moreover, when she reflected upon her Child being the Creator and Sovereign Lord of all things, how could she suppose that he was to be submitted to the humiliation of being ransomed as a slave, whose life and person are not his own?

And yet the Holy Spirit revealed to Mary that she must comply with both these laws. She, the holy Mother of God, must go to the Temple like other Hebrew mothers, as though she had lost something which needed restoring by a legal sacrifice. He that is the Son of God and Son of Man must be treated in all things as though he were a servant, and be ransomed in common with the poorest Jewish boy. Mary adores the will of God, and embraced it with her whole heart.'

'At length the Holy Family enter Jerusalem. The name of this holy City signifies 'Vision of Peace'; and Jesus comes to bring her Peace. Let us consider the names of the three places in which our Redeemer began, continued and ended his life on earth. He is conceived at Nazareth, which signifies 'a Flower'; and Jesus is, as he tells us in the Canticle, the 'Flower of the field and the Lily of the valley', by whose fragrance we are refreshed. He is born at Bethlehem, the 'House of Bread'; for he is the nourishment of our souls. He dies on the Cross in Jerusalem, and, by his Blood, he restores peace between heaven and earth, peace between men, peace within our own souls; and, on this day of his Mother's Purification, we shall find him giving us the pledge of this peace.'

'...But this great event could not be accomplished without a prodigy being wrought by the Eternal God as a welcome to his Son. The Shepherds had been summoned by the Angel, and the Magi had been called by the Star, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem: this time it is the Holy Ghost himself who sends a witness to the Infant, now in the great Temple.

There was then living in Jerusalem an old man whose life was wellnigh spent. He was a 'Man of desires', and his name was Simeon; his heart had longed unceasingly for the Messias, and at last his hope was recompensed. The Holy Ghost revealed to him that he should not see death without first seeing the rising of the Divine Light. As Mary and Joseph were ascending the steps of the Temple, to take Jesus to the altar, Simeon felt within himself the strong impulse of the Spirit of God: he leaves his house, and walks towards the Temple; the ardour of his desire makes him forget the feebleness of age. He reaches the porch of God's House, and there, amidst the many mothers who had come to present their children, his inspired gaze in Isaias, and he presses through the crowd to the Child she is holding in her arms.

Mary, guided by the same Divine Spirit, welcomes the saintly old man, and puts into his trembling arms the dear object of her love, the Salvation of the world. Happy Simeon! figure of the ancient world, grown old in its expectation, and near its end. Not sooner has he received the sweet Fruit of Life, than his youth is renewed as that of the eagle, and in his person is wrought the transformation which was to be granted to the whole human race. He cannot keep silence; he must sing a Canticle; he must do as the Shepherds and Magi had done, he must give testimony: "Now", he says, "O Lord, thou dost dismiss thy servant in Peace, because my eyes have seen thy Salvation, which thou hast prepared--a Light that is to enlighten the Gentiles, and give glory to thy people Israel".

Immediately there comes, attracted to the spot by the same Holy Spirit, the holy Anna, Phanuel's daughter, noted for her piety, and venerated by the people on account of her great age. Simeon and Anna, the representatives of the Old Testament, unite their voices, and celebrate the happy coming of the Child who is to renew the face of the earth; they give praise to the mercy of Jehovah, who in this place, in this second Temple, gives Peace to the world, as the Prophet Aggeus had foretold'(Chapter 2 of Aggeus).

This is a great day, the end of the Christmas season, and another day which the world, at least in the U.S., has given to a rodent, the groundhog. Just another holy day which has been tainted by the world for stupidity. Christ has been given to us, the Jews, in the names of Simeon and Anna, have announced to us, that things will be different, from now to the end of time. Let us end this with the Antiphon of the Magnificat for this day:

The old man carried the Child, but the Child guided the old man. A Virgin bore him, and after childbirth continued a Virgin: she adored him whom she brought forth.

O Almighty and Eternal God, we humbly beseech thy only Son, in the substance of our flesh, was this day presented in the Temple, so our souls, being perfectly cleansed, may be presented to thee. Through the same Father, with the Son, and with the Holy Ghost, one God forever and ever.