The presentation of our children

A Reflection for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Find today’s readings here.

We celebrate a joyful mystery today, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, when Mary and Joseph brought their infant Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to fulfill the law. I try to imagine myself in Mary’s place, a new mother, still postpartum, still a little wobbly, a bit sleepless, a bit messy and milky, but doing my religious duty, offering the sacrificial birds, minding my own business. And then both an old man and a prophetess in the temple step forward to make fantastic and alarming pronouncements about my baby. Maybe Mary suspected all along that this kind of thing was going to happen, given the circumstances of her baby’s conception involving an angel’s visit (another joyful mystery) and all that, but still. It had to have been a lot to hear that your “child is destined for the fall and rise of many.”

Nevertheless, the little family went back to their own town of Nazareth, to the quiet normality of family life, where they raised a good kid. That’s pretty much all we know about Jesus until he turns twelve. We are told that Mary treasured all the mysteries of motherhood, joyful and otherwise, in her heart, a secret trait common to mothers.

At the time of the Presentation of Jesus, Mary had completed her purification ritual, cleansing herself after childbirth according to Mosaic law. Such formal rigor is not prescribed to us Catholic parents, although I suppose bringing our infants to the church to be baptized is a kind of presentation. Then we present them for subsequent sacraments, Reconciliation and First Communion and Confirmation. Perhaps raising a child to adulthood is a series of presentations: You parent as best as you can, and at each new milestone of your child’s life, you let go a little more. When your child reaches adulthood, when your once-baby bird fledges from the nest, you turn to God and say “Here you go.” But that final presentation happens many years after your child’s birth—as does our own final presentation of ourselves before God and Heaven.
On a lighter note, today’s unrelated occasion celebrates Groundhog Day, a non-spiritual rite in which we get six more weeks of winter if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow and is so frightened by it that he retreats back into the safety of his den. May there be no shadow today! And may this lighthearted annual tradition remind us not to be frightened of our own shadows, not to retreat into safety, but to live our faith in full sun and in plain sight. May we strive every day to present ourselves, humbly and fearlessly, as followers of Jesus.