Tag Archives: temple in Jerusalem

The Presentation of Mary in the Temple

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Mary temple
Mary, Presented in the Temple: Giotto

The Presentation of Mary in the Temple, November 21,  is an ecumenical feast originating in Jerusalem in the 6th century. A new church, honoring Mary, was built for pilgrims  by the Emperor Justinian near the ruins of the Jewish temple. Tradition said Mary was born nearby. Other early traditions place her birthplace in Nazareth or the neighboring city of Sepphoris.

Artists like Giotto supported the Jerusalem tradition by their popular portrayals of Mary introduced into the temple by Ann and Joachim, her mother and father. (above) 

Luke’s gospel may support the Jerusalem tradition by noting that Mary’s  cousin Elizabeth was married to Zechariah, a temple priest. Luke also says  Mary and Joseph were familiar visitors to the temple. Forty days after the birth of Jesus , they went there “when the days were completed for their purification,” (Luke 2,22) They  brought Jesus to the temple as a child to celebrate the feasts. For Jesus the temple is  “my Father’s house.” There is no direct scriptural support that says Mary was born and raised in Jerusalem, however.

This feast celebrates Mary’s gift for “listening to the word of God and keeping it.” (Luke 11:28) For Mary the temple was always a place of God’s presence. In the temple she learned to see that God was everywhere, in Nazareth, Bethlehem, even on Calvary.(cf. John 4, 22-26) “You are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you,” St. Paul reminds the Corinthians. (1 Corinthians 3, 16) 

St. Paul of the Cross, founder of the Passionists, was greatly devoted to this feast because he began his 40 day retreat to discern God’s will on this day. He experienced God’s call to found a community during those holy days. Afterwards, he dedicated the first retreat of his congregation on Monte Argentario to the Presentation of Mary and returned there year after year to renew the grace he received then. St. Vincent Strambi, his biographer, writes:

“Whenever possible, Paul kept the feast in the Retreat of the Presentation. How often, even when old and crippled, he would set out from the Retreat of St.Angelo, traveling over impassible roads in the harsh days of November, to Monte Argentario, where he would celebrate the feast with great recollection. It would be difficult to describe the days he spent there. His heart seemed to melt like wax in a fire because of his love for the Mother of God and his gratitude towards her.  As the feast drew near he was so full of joy that the air around Monte Argentario seemed to breathe a sweetness similar to what the prophet Joel describes: “On that day, the mountains will drop down sweetness and the hills flow with milk.” On the day of the feast, he seems totally penetrated with tender devotion.  Even on his deathbed, he recalled, “The day of the Presentation was always a holy and solemn day for me.” 

Please pray for the Passionists, the community he founded that, like Mary, the Mother of God, we may hear God’s word and kept it.

Today many young people are not baptizing their children or offering them much religious formation. “Let them decide for themselves.” Introduce your children to your religious tradition from their earliest years, this feast says. Get them familiar with their church. That’s what the parents of Mary did. They prepared her for the coming of the Angel and the presence of her Son.

“Where is the temple where you learn to hear God’s word?’ we have to ask ourselves.

The Last Days

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When Jesus came up to Jerusalem before his death, he was not a hapless Galillean peasant who would be cut down by a powerful Jewish-Roman elite. He was not simply a healer who was killed because he stirred up crowds and might also stir up revolution in the sensitive land of his day.

Those who believed in him saw him as a great teacher, a  “Rabbi” well aware of his times and his tradition. Matthew’s gospel emphasizes his role as teacher. But he was more than that, as Peter testifies in the 9th chapter of Matthew. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

In the chapters of the synoptic gospels  preceding his passion, Jesus Christ speaks about the world and its future, the “end times.”  In his new book,” Jesus of Nazareth, Part 2,” Pope Benedict calls this part of the gospel the most difficult part to explain.

Jesus sees the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and what follows it. That’s important as he goes to his death.

He sees himself as the new temple. In a new age, when the gentiles are called to believe in him, the old temple will be abandoned. Its sacrifices for sins now take place through the blood of the Lamb. His blood is shed for us and we are united to God through him.

So much of what Jesus does at the Last Supper begins that replacement of the temple and its sacrifices.

The temple and everything about it was dear to him. That’s obvious from what he says about it and his devotion to its worship. Like a mother hen he would have sheltered the Holy City under his wings, but it turned away, as it turned away from Jeremiah and the other prophets.

There are signs up on the buses from Union City to New York City that Judgment Day is  coming on May 21st. That’s the word from Harold Camping on Family Radio, who has it all figured out.

The pope’s summary of the end times in his book is so much more nuanced than that of the biblical  fundamentalists. He keeps the future mysterious, and repeats Jesus’ message to “stay awake” each day.