Septuagesima Sunday

Thoughts for the Week - Fr. R. Taouk 
1st February 2015

The Feast of the Presentation by St. Vincent Ferrer

St. Thomas asks "Whether it was fitting that the Mother of God should go to the temple to be purified?". And he replies yes: because as the fullness of grace flowed from Christ on to His Mother, so it was becoming that the mother should be like her Son in humility. And therefore, just as Christ, though not subject to the Law, wished, nevertheless, to submit to circumcision and the other burdens of the Law, in order to give an example of humility and obedience; and in order to show His approval of the Law; and, again, in order to take away from the Jews an excuse for calumniating Him: for the same reasons He wished His Mother also to fulfil the prescriptions of the Law, to which, nevertheless, she was not subject.

What is more is that, Christ wished to be offered in the temple for the sanctification of the temple. And so He did not need to be sanctified in the temple, but rather the temple ought to be sanctified by Him, because He was and is the Saint of saints. Therefore our Lord Jesus Christ as firstborn and only-begotten of the Virgin Mary, wished to be presented to God the Father in the temple and offered in the hands of the priest.

It is asked why holy Simeon took Him in his arms, because this was not promised to him by the Holy Spirit, but it was promised to him that he would not die until he first saw Christ the Lord. Whence therefore such presumption that he would take Him? I reply that for our salvation it does not suffice to see Christ through faith, but it is necessary to receive Him in the hands through good works. So Mark, last chapter, "He who believes and is baptised, shall be saved" (Mk 16:16). One might say, "I have those eyes of the soul, the right by believing the divinity of Christ, and the left, the humanity of Christ. So Christ is seen by us on the way. What else is it necessary for me to do? I say, like Simeon, that Christ is received into our hands through good works. "What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he has faith, but has not works? Shall faith be able to save him?" "Faith without works is dead" (James 2:20,26). As a sign of this we carry lighted candles in our hands, which signifies three things which are in Christ. The soft wax signifies the flesh of Christ, which has vulnerability, which has been liquefied in the Passion. The white wick signifies the most pure soul of Christ. The flame, however, signifies the immense divinity of Christ. It is not sufficient just to see the light on the altar, nor Christ through faith, but to receive him in our hands through good works. And so the Apostle Paul says, "Glorify and bear God in your body" (1Cor 6:20). Then indeed Christ is born by us when out of love of Him we avoid sin.