Yesterday was the Feast Day of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple (which is the Fourth Joyful Mystery of the Most Holy Rosary). I got to attend daily Mass during lunchtime at Our Lady of Grace. But before Mass I had the opportunity to avail myself of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. Having gotten sober in a 12 Step Program some few decades ago, I hold a special place in my heart for this Sacrament. It is like the moral inventory steps in any of the Anonymous Programs:
Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
Page 85 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says:
It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all of our activities. “How can I best serve Thee-Thy will (not mine) be done.” These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will.
My sobriety is contingent on my spiritual condition. My spiritual condition is contingent on my moral inventory. My moral inventory is contingent on how well and how frequently I avail myself of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. Therefore, to neglect this Sacrament is to set myself up for a drink or a drug where hell begins not after some future death but right here and right now. Today I choose to do what the Sacrament requires because I simply cannot stand the alternative of temporal hell on Earth, much less eternal hell in the afterlife. I suppose that's imperfect contrition, but my 12 Step sponsor (and his sponsor a Franciscan priest who was my Confessor early in sobriety) would always say that fear can be a great motivator. As Psalm 111:10 states:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
a good understanding have all those who practice it.
His praise endures for ever!
Nevertheless, without further delay, yesterday's Scripture readings included the following:
- The Coming Messenger: Malachi 3:1-4
- Entrance into the Temple: Psalm 24:7-10
- Exaltation through Abasement: Hebrews 2:14-18
- Jesus' Presentation in the Temple: Luke 2:22-40
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| Jesus' Presentation in the Temple |
Second, for the Institution of the Passover (Exodus 12)and the Feast of the Unleavened Bread (Exodus 13), the Lord commands thusly in Exodus 13:2:
Consecrate to me all the first-born; whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine.
And the Lord goes on in verses 11 to 16 to say:
And when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, and shall give it to you, you shall set apart to the Lord all that first opens the womb. All the firstlings of your cattle that are males shall be the Lord’s. Every firstling of an ass you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. Every first-born of man among your sons you shall redeem. And when in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, from the house of bondage. For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of cattle. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males that first open the womb; but all the first-born of my sons I redeem.’ It shall be as a mark on your hand or frontlets between your eyes; for by a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.
Leviticus chapter 12 gives further details on the Purification of Women after Childbirth, specifying a certain timetable in verses 2 through 4:
If a woman conceives, and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as at the time of her menstruation, she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Then she shall continue for thirty-three days in the blood of her purifying; she shall not touch any hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are completed.
In obedience to these commands the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph bring Jesus their firstborn to the Temple 40 days after his birth - the forty having significance in the 40 years that Israel spent in the wilderness after the Exodus, and 40 days and nights that it rained upon the Earth during the Great Flood in Genesis 7.
Third, the term firstborn would seem to imply to us modern people that there must have been other children, otherwise Jesus would be called the only born or only son of the Blessed Virgin Mary (and obviously she wouldn't be Virgin). However, in Judaic Law the term firstborn has a legal significance regardless of whether or not there are other children afterwards. Therefore, those who use that term to dispute the perpetual Virginity of our Lord's Mother demonstrate ignorance of Scripture (and invariably they are Protestants who likewise deny the power of the Sacraments, the authority of the Church and the primacy of the Pope as the Vicar of Christ).
So Jesus was the firstborn dedicated to His Father 40 days after His birth as the Law prescribes. While He, being the Son of God, could declare exemption from the requirements of the Law, He did not, but was obedient even through His earthly Mother and foster father in every way. Philippians 2:5-8 describes it in this way:
Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
And if He did not exempt Himself from obedience to Divine Law, then what's wrong with us?
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