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Third Sunday of Epiphany —ألاØد الثالت من زمن الدنØ
Year 114 - Issue No. 4 ||
January 26—February 1, 2025 a.d.
During the Christmas season, Holy Mother Church gives us all five Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary. A few weeks before Christmas we hear the Gospel of the ①Annunciation, and then that of the ② Visitation, and of course on ③ Christmas the Nativity of our Lord, and on the following Sunday, the story of the ⑤ finding in the Temple. Today, after forty days we hear the Fourth Joyful Mystery, the ④ Presentation in the Temple. Of course we must remember, to pray the rosary every day, so as to fully rejoice in these joyful mysteries.
In this 4th Joyful Mystery, today’s Gospel, Joseph and Mary bring the baby Jesus to the Temple in obedience to the Law of Moses. They can’t afford a calf or a goat to redeem their Son, so they offer what they can afford, the offering allowed to poor people, two little pigeons. He who made the entire planet and sustains it in being at every moment was “redeemed” in his own Temple by two scrawny Word of the week birds. Neither Joseph and Mary, nor the Lord Jesus Christ himself, were ashamed of their poverty. They knew they were sons of God, as St. Paul points out in the Epistle, heirs of God’s Kingdom. “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, to ransom those under the law….you are no longer a slave but a son, and an heir…”
There is no shame in any kind of honest poverty since God took on the poverty of human flesh. Neither poverty of intellect, nor poverty of physical beauty, or poverty of money, or poverty of health or friends or social standing—no honest poverty is shameful. Shame is not found in either wealth or poverty, but in sin. We must recall always that we possess everything because we possess God, who has given himself to us. We need nothing more. “Take all that I have, O Lord. Grant me only your love and your grace,” prayed St. Ignatius, “that is sufficient for me.”
But back to our Story, the Fourth Joyful Mystery. Simeon, the mysterious old man in the temple, takes the baby in his arms (notice that Mary gives him the baby) and proclaims the Nunc Dimittis (Logos of the week), prayed by all monks, nuns and priests just before going to bed every night: “Now, O Lord, you may let your servant die in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation and your glory” he sings, gazing down at the baby.
The child’s father and mother, were amazed at what he said about the baby, but Simeon goes on: “Behold, this child will be the rise and the fall of many in Israel, and you yourself a sword shall pierce.” A prophetess, Anna, also glorified God about the child to all who were awaiting redemption. These two prophets, Simeon and Anna, witnessed to Christ’s Lordship, joining the Angels of heaven, the Magi and the Shepherds in testimony to Christ’s divinity.
Simeon, however, witnesses also to Mary, herself the greatest witness to Christ. Not only with words but by blood will she testify. Jesus will be a sign of contradiction, but Mary’s heart also a sword shall pierce. This piercing is a joyful mystery! because God permits her to share in his saving mission. Our Lady of Sorrows, prophesied here by Simeon, maintains deep in her wounded heart the joy of suffering with Jesus. A sword did, does or will undoubtedly run some of us. Let us pray for the strength to witness to His Lordship, come what may. “By faith,” writes Pope Benedict, “across the centuries, men and women of all ages …have confessed the beauty of following the Lord Jesus wherever they were called to bear witness: in the family, in the workplace, in public life, in the exercise of the charisms and ministries to which they were called…..”
Let us pray through Our Lady to witness through charity to those with whom we live, those with whom we work, those with whom we share the freeways, that Jesus Christ is Lord!