Ordo Praedicatorum

Homily for Presentation of the Lord, DHS, February 2, 2007
© 2007, Lawrence J. Donohoo, O.P. All rights reserved.

Thesis: We, too, are caught up in a series of offerings not perfectly received or given in our attempts to redeem the redemption.

1. An embarrassment of riches and paradoxes.

We face today an embarrassment of riches. Five great mysteries grace our Gospel: the presentation of Christ, the would-be sacrifices, a light that shines brightly into the future, the death of the Old covenant and the birth of the New, and the suffering of sacrificed doves and piercing swords.

We also face the embarrassment of paradoxes.
– The Redeemer of the Chosen People and the peoples yet to be chosen is presented in the Temple, whose rite is designed to redeem him. Jesus is redeemed as the first-born under the Law, but He has come to redeem us from the Law.
– The Mother who hands him over to Simeon is thought to be defiled rather than sanctified by his birth. The turtledoves offer their lives to redeem the woman from impurity, but she is the Immaculate Conception who has already been redeemed.

– The old man carries the child, but the child sustains the old man and his prophecy as his Lord and God. The aged man has awaited the consolation of Israel, but now he offers a disconsoling revelation of a piercing sword.
– Mary and Joseph come to present their child to fulfill the Law’s prescriptions, but Simeon comes to present the child with His destiny. The destiny and mission of the Child are revealed in prophetic light, but thoughts of many hearts have not yet been revealed.
– The child is destined to be a light to the Gentiles and the glory of God’s people Israel, but he will be a sign that will be opposed.

2. Standing in between

All these paradoxes; all these embarrassments. Why? Things are not fitting together here. Embarrassment arises because the offerings, made with the best of intentions, cannot be accepted. The giver is unworthy of the receiver, and so the gift falls short. The promise is still ahead of us, and it’s path is far from straight.

And why all these exchanges? Why does each receive something different from what the other gives?

We are standing in between the Old and the New. The new wine is about to burst the old wineskins. The sun is setting on the first covenant and so we stand in this poignant twilight zone. The new is still springing from Bethlehem; the center cannot hold: the center of Jewish life and holiness that is the Temple. The new wine has no bottle; the new garment cannot yet be worn.

The aged Simeon and Anna have long roots in the Old Dispensation. They have been waiting, waiting for the Lord, more than sentinels wait for the dawn. They have been waiting in the Temple for the Lord, and the Temple itself has been waiting.

Simeon recognizes that he has been standing between the twilight and before the dawn, but now he exchanges that darkness for the Light which streams from his arms. Yet it is not a full light, not even in the Temple.
It is not just Simeon and Anna, but a long line of prophets and prophetesses, of kings and queens, of rich and poor alike, who have been waiting for him. And it is not just this Temple, but also the Temple of Solomon, and before that, the Ark of the Covenant which has been waiting, and before that, the Ark of Noah, from which a dove flew forth.
But the Temple is the House of God. God has been waiting for the Redeemer. God has been waiting for himself, waiting to present himself.

3. The turtledoves

All this becomes clearer if we begin with the turtledoves, who stand in between life and death and begin a sequence of sacrifices.

It was a dove that first announced that redemption was again at hand, on land, that we with Noah could step out of the ark onto dry land, and eventually, could step back into the Ark of the Covenant.
For this reason, the lover recalls the dove in the spring song of the Song of Songs: “For see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of pruning the vines has come, and the song of the dove is heard in our land.”

But in the Temple the song becomes a scream: one turtledove becomes a holocaust, the other a sin-offering. Life becomes death. Both birds stand in for the New Eve. They take her sin away who knew no sin. Their exchange or sacrifice is all the more poignant because it is, strictly speaking, to no purpose at all.

And she, the Immaculate One, has exchanged or sacrificed her own private destiny for Her child. The thoughts of her heart have already been laid bare during the conversation with the angel, in the hymn of the Magnificat, in the ecstatic chaos of Bethlehem. And we have heard them. Now the fruit of her womb has been laid bare in the arms of Simeon.
And the Child, who has come in the first place as the first-born, offers himself for redemption because every first-born male–human or animal–that opens the womb is sacrificed. Why? Because the first-born of Egypt were sacrificed, and they were sacrificed because of Pharaoh’s sin; they were sacrificed so that Israel might go free. The child, then, is redeemed because the Egyptian first-born were sacrificed for Israel. But soon he will sacrifice for them–he, the Redeemer in a long line of sacrifice, of redemption.

How shall we put this together? The turtledoves are offered for her who offers herself for him who offers himself for us who offer ourselves to his Father. Jesus repeats the pattern of the doves. Just as they stood in for her, so he stands in for us. But his presentation, like theirs, will be a plea not heard.

4. Further exchanges

There are further exchanges. Mary’s life is now bound up with the child’s. She carries the divine burden until Simeon takes the child in his arms. And then he returns the burden to her with a prophecy that itself will pierce her heart.
Simeon and Anna come to the Temple and sacrifice the Old Dispensation for the New. They close the last page of the Old Testament and open a new scroll.

They close the book on those who have gone before them. Countless generations of prophets, priests, kings, and the lowly have sacrificed their lives for the coming of the Messiah. They have sacrificed for Him in order that He might sacrifice for them–and us.

Here, then, is the greatest exchange of all: God allows His sinful and sinless creatures–turtledoves, the prophets and prophetess, the Temple, Joseph and Mary–to share in the work of ransoming the Child, of redeeming the Redeemer.

5. We, too, sacrifice for the sacrificed

We, too, share in the same work of sacrifice, as St. Paul teaches, but now it is the Mystical Body of Christ which must be presented in fullness. Christ has made our work effective, but it is a work that is still in progress.

For we too are still standing in between. We still do not fully understand Simeon’s prophecy; we are still waiting for hearts to be laid bare, including our own. Israel is still not consoled, and the light to the nations seems to flicker on and off.

Our time is also in between. We stand between the presentation of the Lord in our history and His coming at the close of the age. Because of this fragile time, we too offer what is not exactly received and receive something different from what is offered.

We too struggle to receive the Incarnate One who has already received us. We labor to redeem a redemption that has already been won for us. What we give may not be received, or it may be received differently.

Our task and joy is to offer ourselves to him, who offers himself for us, by offering ourselves to others. Like the turtledoves we can begin a series of exchanges, a tradition of sacrifices.

Things are structured, both by nature and in grace, that each of us must exchange ourselves for others, even if the gift is not well received or even understood.

No matter; God can make a better offering of us. And more, it is by offering that we are received. The Virgin also hands to us her Child, and we must carry him in our arms. We, too, must carry the child so that he might carry us.
The point is that God redeems our poor efforts at redemption. We bring the good act polluted by self-recognition and he converts it into love. We bring the bread and wine and he makes it himself. We bring our fragmentary lives with its loose ends, broken promises, and false starts, but nothing is offsides for him. He weaves an eternal tapestry of it all.

In this sense the Law is not so much rubbish.It is the precondition of redemption because God prefers to transform than to start over again, as Moses learned on the mountain. We bring what we have, poor as it is, so that we might witness the power of his transformation. And what he transforms is still ours and has been ours all along, but now in the form of grace. On the other side, whether it’s in a few minutes or in the world to come, we’ll still recognize it as our own–and his as well.

Lawrence J. Donohoo, O.P.

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