4th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C or The Presentation of the Lord 2025.

Today marks the 40th day after Christmas. Traditionally, it signals the end of the Christmas season. Of course, for most, if not all, we have already taken down our decoration since the Baptism of the Lord.

During Ordinary Time, the solemnities and feasts of Our Lord take precedence over the Sunday celebration. Since the Presentation falls on a weekend, it supersedes the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The other two feasts sharing the same privilege are the Transfiguration and the Exaltation of the Cross. Coincidentally, this year, the Exaltation of the Cross falls on a Sunday too.

A feast on a Sunday might feel like an interruption but it actually presents a good segue into how we can scrutinise more profoundly the person of Jesus Christ.

Apart from the Presentation, Feb 2nd is also called the Purification of Mary. How can we understand the Mosaic tradition which considers a mother unclean for forty days after the birth of a son? The most humble Mother of God, despite her immaculate conception, submitted to the law and at the end of that period, she went to the Temple to offer a sacrifice for her purification and also to present the Boy to God.

Our challenge is that we have associated purification with the notion of moral impurity. This is partly due to our knowledge of biology having advanced to the point that this taboo does not sit too well with our current understanding. To understand Mary’s act purification, consider it from the perspective of cleansing the Sacred Vessels after Holy Communion.

The purification towards the end of Mass is not an indication that something impure has previously touched the vessels. How can it be when both the paten and chalice carried the Sacred Body and Blood of Christ during Mass? The act of purifying the vessel is a rite undertaken to prepare the vessel for future use. A woman’s greatest power is to conceive and bear life and her purification after birth is to prepare her for the possibility of a future conception.

The other name which makes more sense to us is Candlemas. There in the Temple, as the elderly Simeon encounters the Child and His mother, the prophecy gives meaning to the Rite of Blessing of Candles. Jesus is the “Light that enlightens the pagans”. To be more polite, “Gentiles”. The encounter with Simeon was yet another theophany, a manifestation of God in human history. God cannot be a Saviour if He were only the Saviour of the Jews and not the Gentiles. It does not make sense.

However, we seemed to have fractured history, meaning that, we isolate or dismiss historical realities in such a way as to accommodate present sensibilities. For example, the calculation of time periods is now divided into BCE and CE, and they stand for, “Before Common Era” and “Common Era”. Such a division allows us to take our focus off how time came to be calculated. In the past, we used BC and AD to represent time before Christ and after. BC is easy enough to understand: Before Christ’s birth. However, A.D. stands for “Anno Domini”, that is, in the year of the Lord. Historically when was Christ born is not the point here. Rather, time is reckoned or sanctified by the birth of the pivotal person of Jesus Christ. BCE and CE, despite trying to get away from referring to Christ as the measure is a form of cutting Him down to size. The new time reference is trying to ignore the impact of Christ’s birth even if it is still using Him as the marker.

Thus, the Presentation is actually a kind of healing of time in the sense that in Christ we find the meeting of the Two Testaments. Here again, there is an attempt to separate both the Testaments in such a manner to accord them their autonomy, under the guise of respect for their uniqueness. Currently vogue is to use the terms, the Hebrew Testament and the Christian Testament to denote both the Old and the New Testaments. When Christ was brought to the Temple, a reconciliation took place. Such a healing may not be for the Jews but it is definitely for us. For the Jews it is OK for them to refer to the Hebrew Testament. For us, it is like calling the Real Presence a piece of wafer so that we may not offend those who do not believe in the Blessed Sacrament.

Going to Jerusalem, Jesus the New Temple of God enters the Old Temple to reconcile and fulfil the expectation of the old for the new. The Greeks called this encounter the “hypapante tou Kyriou” because both Simeon and Anna represented the Old Testament who have been waiting for the coming of salvation.

Indeed, creation has been groaning ever since the foundation of the world, longing for salvation. If we follow the 1st Reading, Christ now comes to Jerusalem to purify the city of its laxity and indifference. Thus, Simeon pointed out that He is destined to be the downfall and the rise of many in Israel. If we turn to the 2nd Reading, Christ is now the High Priest who offers the perfect sacrifice, that is, He offers Himself, and not merely any sacrificial offering. He is the only sacrifice that is acceptable to the Father. In that way, He ushers in the fullness of salvation in these last days.

If we reckon the Presentation as the last day of Christmas, the reconciliation between the Old and New Covenant cannot be more spectacular than the visit of the little Child to the Temple. He is the true Light that humanity has been waiting for, the Light that darkness cannot overcome. Christian is the mission that continues to shine the Light, who is Christ. The affairs of humanity and the state of the environment feel like Christianity is a losing proposition. Present situations actually highlight the reality of overwhelming darkness and this makes the list of our failures feel longer than our successes. Precisely the strength of darkness does not invalidate the mission to be Christ’s light.

At the start of the Mass, we all lit our candles, right? It was a reminder that the Presentation is a call of duty and devotion for each one of us to light up the world for Christ. We begin with our desire to be light even if we feel that we are nothing but little embers. As the hymn suggests. It only takes a spark to get a fire going.

The Presentation of the Lord Year A 2020

The Presentation of the Lord is also called Candlemas because it continues with the theme of light that has been illuminating our reflection over the last 40 days. It was also known as the Purification of Mary. You could have kept your crib until now because this feast marks the end of the prolonged Christmas season.

The scriptural basis for this celebration is found in a combination of two distinct prescriptions from the books of Exodus and Leviticus. According to Exodus, every first-born male, animal or human, belongs to God. Therefore, the redemption of the animal or the boy is paid for by a levy to the temple which does not require any sort of presence of the boy or the animal. What requires a presence in the Temple is the purification of a mother 40 days after the birth of her first-born son. In Luke’s Gospel, both redemption and presentation take place in one setting. Thus, Mary along with Joseph and Jesus came to the Temple—one to be purified and the other to be redeemed.

Set this Lucan scene within the context of the First Reading. There, Malachi paints a rather terrifying picture of the coming of the Lord. “He will take His seat as refiner and purifier; He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and then they will make the offering to the Lord as it should be”. At the Presentation, the Lord now comes suddenly but He enters His Temple not as Judge but as a helpless infant—a member of the human family and not just any human family but a poor one, as indicated by the humble sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves that both Mary and Joseph offered.

There in the Temple the Old Testament meets the New. Both Anna and Simeon represent the expectation of Israel that God would send His Messiah to save His people. Christ is presented by Simeon as a Light for the Gentiles and the Glory of God’s people: Israel. In fulfilling Israel’s hope, this Infant will extend His salvation to the ends of the earth. At Pentecost, Luke will detail this fulfilment where through the unction of the Holy Spirit the Church will soon spread from Jerusalem to the whole world.

Today is yet another epiphany and one which we did something out of the ordinary. As Simeon exalted the Infant as the Light of the World, liturgically we imitated him by blessing our candles, lighting them and then holding a symbol of the Light of Christ, we processed into the Church. Some people also brought candles to be blessed for use at home. I remember when I was a child, during a lightning thunderstorm of strong wind and rain, grandma would tell us to bring out blessed candles and have one lit. That was because we lived in a house akin to the flimsy first hut of the Three Little Pigs, permanently in danger of being blown down by the strong gales. It was an act of faith in God’s protection.

To appreciate the liturgical action of blessing our candles and for the matter of speaking blessing our rosaries, scapulars and Crosses, we need to venture into the world of the sacramentals. Firstly, blessing is a sacramental act and in order to understand what it is, we need to differentiate a sacramental from what a sacrament is. Secondly, a sacramental can be anything. It is associated with the Church as “a blessing, an action or an object of devotion”—sign of the Cross, bowing, pilgrimage, medals and statues etc. According to the Catechism, “sacramentals are sacred signs instituted by the Church. They prepare men to receive the fruits of the sacraments and sanctify different circumstances of life” (CCC 1677).

As such, their efficacy is dependent on a proper disposition of faith since sacramentals only have potential for giving us grace. In other words, the Church gives us the sacramentals to excite our faith and to prepare us so that we can cooperate with God’s grace. Sacramentals should not be confused with the Seven Sacraments because the latter were instituted by Christ Himself. This means that sacramentals do not have the same type of saving grace as the Seven Sacraments. Sacramentals convey grace through the “work and prayers of the Church” (ex opere operantis Ecclesiae) and “by the work of the doer” (ex opere operantis).

Since the grace that God makes available is very much dependent on the disposition of the person performing the act, it means that, sacramentals are not infallible in their effects. They cannot be used as a “lucky charm” that works every time, no matter the disposition. It is quite common to see rosaries being hung from rear-view mirrors of cars, which in a multi-religious society, we see other religions hanging their beads too. There is a thin line between the rosary as a sacramental and a talisman. Inviting a priest to bless a car does not guarantee that one will never be involved in an accident. The rosary hanging in the car, the medal/scapular that one wears, the blessing of religious articles or pilgrimages are acts of faith. One must have a strong faith in God’s action or else it will become an empty ritual, lacking any personal effect, more like amulets used for protection. Here is the kicker: if one does not obtain the effect of the sacramental, it may not be due to a lack of faith but rather to God’s inscrutable will at work. We cannot fully fathom the working of God’s will. The point is: Do not lose faith.

The seven sacraments are different in that Christ Himself is the principal celebrant of every Sacrament. Christ Himself takes the initiative—He incorporates you into His Body in Baptism; He strengthens you through Confirmation; He feeds you with His Body and Blood in the Eucharist; He absolves you through Confession; He heals you through Anointing and finally, He sends you to serve either as priests or married couples through Orders and Matrimony.

Since He desires to give His grace to us, He Himself supplies for what is lacking in the priest who celebrates the sacraments, so that grace can be communicated no matter what. If a sinful priest says Mass, the Eucharist will still be changed into Christ’s body and blood (provided that the priest uses the proper words and matter required for the sacrament). Likewise, a baby who is totally unawares of the surrounding when baptised becomes a member of Christ’s Body. And even if you were a horrible man (but baptised), the marriage you contract with your girlfriend (also a baptised), is still a valid sacramental marriage. In short, the Sacraments give grace of themselves when we place no obstacle in the way whereas the sacramentals excite in us pious dispositions, by means of which we may obtain grace.

In summary, God’s action is much more powerful in a sacrament than any sacramental. As Christ Himself instituted the seven sacraments, the Church under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit establishes the sacramentals. Since sacramentals do not come from Christ Himself, they come and go according to the circumstances and place. Our Bishop, with approval from the Pope, can establish a sacramental for use in his diocese. Sacramentals can even be disbanded if they no longer serve a purpose. For example, there used to be a blessing of a telegraph which today is rather unheard of. Or there are Russian Orthodox priests who bless missiles (weapons of mass destruction) but after the downing of MH17, such a blessing would be considered rather inappropriate.

You should be able to appreciate that the sacramentals, while related to the Seven Sacraments, do not operate in the same way. Knowing this difference might help us to use them properly thereby disposing us to the graces God wants to give to us through the sacramentals.

However, is there a need to go through all these when we can go directly to God. A valid question. But, would you throw the body of your deceased parent to dogs for food? Why not? Dead people have not feelings and they definitely do not give a hoot if they look beautiful or hideous with the make-up. Now, if you are disgusted by such a suggestion, then you are already intuitively reacting from the space of sacramentality. We are more sacramental than we realise.

Earlier I mentioned about lighting a candle in a storm which we no longer do since we live in concrete houses. It begs the question if faith were needed only when we have nowhere to turn to? This is basically the position of some of us, no? We turn to God only when we have no choice.

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, a rite which He has no need of, helps us to grasp the full meaning of our existence. Whether we need God or not, we are still dependent on Him and all sacramental actions are acknowledgements of this existential reality. Without God, we are not. Yes, the Seven Sacraments are definitely adequate to save us. But, the principle is that the sacraments, though efficacious in themselves, stand on the foundation of sacramentals/sacramentality. This is who we are as long as we are embodied spirits—our spiritual existence is mediated by our physical world. For example: In a marriage, you declare your undying love for your wife and you never fail to let her know. Yet, you have never lifted a finger to help her. Not a flower on her anniversary. Nothing. What love is that? Every act (sacramental, that is mediated) deepens the truth of one’s love in marriage. Sacraments without the sacramentals run the danger of the Sacraments becoming unnecessary. The denial of the use of the sacramental will soon enough render the Seven Sacraments useless and empty of its content.