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MEDITATIONS FOR YOUR LIFE OF CHRIST #4
[This will be a monthly feature page. Cut it out, save it and put it away in a special folder. Each month a new page will be created so you have your own file of spiritual reflection in your home.]
FEBRUARY 2001
The Presentation of the Lord
On the fortieth day after His birth, the most holy Virgin brought her divine Son to the Temple in Jerusalem, to consecrate Him to the Lord and to purify herself according to the Law (Lv. 12:2-7, Exod. 12:2). And though neither the one nor the other was necessary, nevertheless the Lawgiver would not in any way transgress the Law which He had given through His servant and prophet Moses. At that time, Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, was serving his turn as high priest in the Temple. He stood the Virgin Mary in the place for maidens, not that for married women. On this occasion, there were two very special people present: the elder, Simeon, and Anna the daughter of Phanuel. The righteous elder took his Messiah up in his arms and said: ‘Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.’ Simeon also spoke the following words of the Christ Child: ‘Behold, this Child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel.’ Then Anna, who had from her youth served God in the Temple in fasting and prayer, and who herself recognized the Messiah, praised the Lord and made known to the inhabitants of Jerusalem the coming of the awaited One. But the Pharisees, present in the Temple and seeing and hearing all that passed, and being vexed with Zacharias for having stood the Virgin Mary in the place for maidens, made this known to King Herod. Believing this to be the new King of whom the star-followers from the East had spoken, Herod quickly sent to have Jesus killed. But in the meantime the holy family had already escaped from the city and set out for Egypt, under the direction of an angel of God. This day has been celebrated from the very earliest times, but its solemn celebration dates from 544, in the time of the Emperor Justinian.
HOMILY:
-on guidance by the Spirit of God.
‘Jesus being full of the Holy Spirit returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.’ (Luke 4:1)
You see, my brethren, what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. Without the Spirit of God, a man is filled with cares: whither should he go, how should he act? But with the Spirit of God, a man is without these cares. For then the Spirit Himself instructs a man whither to go and how to act, and the man is without sin in his movements and actions because it is the sinless Spirit who leads and guides him. No man can walk or act aright unless the almighty and all-seeing Spirit of God instructs him. He who is not guided by the Holy Spirit of God is guided either by his own personal spirit or by the spirit of an evil demon, and he thus becomes helpless, full of sorrow, wrath and despair. We are not able to endure the Spirit of God in His fullness, as Christ the Lord was able, but we can receive Him as and how it is necessary for us, in order to know whither, what and how. The Spirit indwells the heart of the pure man, and therefrom instructs him.
This is why the Church repeats with great frequency this prayer to the Holy Spirit: ‘O heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of truth ... come and abide in us.’ O Holy Spirit, to Thee be glory and praise for ever. Amen.
-taken from The Prologue from Ochrid
Quote:
We can thus perceive and feel in the very core of the Gospels how history and eternity are merged together in such amazing consistency. For history was, and still is, history. It relates nothing but the past with its incidents, dead and elapsed as they are, impressed on days, months, and years. It has always been impossible for people to conceive that history and eternity would one day merge together, at which time history would pose erect - in the person of Jesus Christ - standing on its feet, alive and life-giving, efficacious, towering, interwoven with the very depths of God and eternity, bearing the mortal past of man within an eternal and immortal life that fades not.
- taken from “The Communion of Love” by Matthew the Poor
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