Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph – Luke 2:22-40

Today is the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple. In the past, it was also known as the Purification of Our Lady. It was further referred to as Candlemas Day because Simeon saw in Jesus a great Light. According to Leviticus 12, after a woman gives birth to a son, she is impure for forty days. At the end of that period, she is to bring an offering to the temple, which the priest offers as a sacrifice, effecting her purification.

However, in the book of Exodus we also find another instruction relating to consecration of the first offspring. It is written that every first-born child which “opens the womb”, whether human or animal, must be offered to God because it belongs to God, Exodus (13:2-15). In Exodus, this verse is set in the context of God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Children born into slavery belonged to the slave master; in consecrating them to God, the Israelites affirmed their new identity as God’s people.

The law also applied for first born animals. However, if the first-born male donkey was critical to a family’s livelihood it could be bought back from God by offering a lamb in its place. This is called redeeming the first-born animal.  So too, the first-born male child could be bought back from the Lord by paying five silver shekels to the temple, Numbers (3:46-51); Leviticus (27:6).  

Today as we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family and there are lessons to be leant from the Holy Family and also from Anna and Simeon.

We know that Jesus was God in human flesh. Mary was a specially chosen woman to be the mother of Jesus Christ, out of the many women in the whole of Israel and, indeed, of the world. Joseph was a “just” or “righteous” man, Matthew (1:19). The holy family did not need to submit to this law and yet, they humbly submitted themselves to all the Jewish customs and traditions of their day like any other ordinary people. Today the law, especially religious laws are often seen as something that needs to be resisted. Yet laws are never given to enslave us but to protect us from evil.

Spread the love ♥
Continue Reading

SIN AND SALVATION – ‘The Nativity’ by Petrus Christus, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., c. mid – 1450’s (Part 1)

The birth of Christ brought God to man, the Cross of Christ brought man to God

You will agree that the above words can hardly be contested. The fact that the Son of God assumed human nature to accomplish our salvation is a mystery beyond our comprehension. Petrus Christus, an Early Netherlandish painter, through today’s painting, attempts to enliven this great mystery. 

Compositionally, the painting is one of Christus’s most complex and significant works. Here the artist profoundly traces the narrative to the dawn of creation, the commencement of time, the fullness of time, and the way to eternity. Characteristic of Chistus, the work is harmonious in colour, as is the geometry and the one-point perspective. Let’s now dive right into the painting. 

Adam and Eve and the Arch

The setting is indeed engaging. The Nativity is enclosed in a shed framed by a Gothic archway rendered in grisaille. At the entrance stand two porphyry columns, connected by a marble threshold. A tiny figure hunches at the base of each column as if holding it up. They seem to bear the weight of the first man and the first woman, namely Adam and Eve. The father and mother of the human race appear embarrassed, acknowledging the fall and their iniquity. Their repentance encounters redemption as they now gaze at the New Adam and the New Eve. It is the dawn of a New Creation.

The arch above presents six illustrations of sin and punishment from the Book of Genesis. Rendered in relief, within each archivolt are the following scenes – The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve earning their bread, the sacrifice of Cain and Abel, Cain slaying Abel, God questioning Cain, and the expulsion of Cain to the Land of Nod. The roundel within each spandrel of the arch depicts two warriors reiterating the dysfunctional state of the world before the introduction of Grace.

Bearing the weight of Adam

The symbolism of the scene deviates from the conventional depiction of the Nativity. Christus emphasizes not so much on the Christmas Narrative as upon the implicit significance of Salvation through the Incarnation and Sacrifice of Christ. He presents the fulfilment of the Old Testament in the context of the fall and redemption.

Spread the love ♥
Continue Reading

Presentation not redemption – 29th December – Fifth day in the octave of Christmas – Luke 2: 22-35

The story of Jesus’ presentation in Jerusalem is one of the few stories in the canonical Gospels that have to do with Jesus’ childhood. The scarcity of information about Jesus’ childhood reminds us that the Gospels are not biographies, or at least not primarily that. They are kerygmatic narratives — they seek to proclaim the gospel and to undergird and strengthen faith in Christ.

According to Leviticus 12, after a woman gives birth to a son, she is impure for forty days. At the end of that period, she is to bring an offering to the temple, which the priest offers as a sacrifice, effecting her purification. In addition, Exodus 13:2, 12, 15 state that every first-born male (which “opens the womb”), whether human or animal, “belongs” to the Lord (cf. 34:20). While (clean) animals (Leviticus 27:27) would be sacrificed, first-born sons needed to be redeemed (Exodus 13:12-15).

According to Numbers 3:46-51, the redemption involved the payment of five shekels to the priesthood. However, according to another tradition in Numbers 3:11-13; 8:16-18, the tribe of the Levites takes the place of the first-born sons of Israel as the Lord’s possession. Thus, the biblical notion of redemption included the idea that the first-born son “belongs” to the Lord in a special way and is dedicated to serve him (as the Levites were also dedicated to serve him).

Mary and Joseph come to present Jesus in the temple. The parents of Jesus were fulfilling the Law, dedicating their son to God. There was, however, an important difference. They did not ‘redeem’ their son, as the law laid down, they ‘presented’ him to God.  

At the Presentation in the Temple, Mary and Joseph made the offering of the poor; two pigeons instead of the lamb which was the offering of the better-off. It is here that they meet Simeon and Anna. Simeon is one of the ‘quiet in the Land’, Jews who awaited God’s coming to his people in a spirit of prayer and quiet watchfulness, rather than the expectation of a triumphant warlord.

Spread the love ♥
Continue Reading

One more mad man in History – Feast of the Holy Innocents – Matthew 2:13-18

Joy at the birth of Christ is short-lived. After the stoning of Stephen there is more violence in this octave of Christmas. This is a painful gospel. What difficult news the angel brings: Joseph and his tiny family have to become refugees and go by night to a foreign land to say nothing of the slaughter of innocent children. The massacre of the innocents was the first clash of religion and politics in Christian history. Herod made the mistake of thinking that Jesus the King was a threat to his kingdom.

History records many evil men. You would be able to compile a list of their names as easily as I can, and your list would probably have some of the same names; Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, Sadam Hussein, Mussolini, Stalin and Herod, just to name a few. All of these men were mass murders. Herod as you will see was one of the worst, because children were his victims.

In 43 BC Herod’s father was assassinated by a threatened family member, and Herod and his brother were captured. After being captured, the brother committed suicide, but Herod managed to escape and flee to Rome. Then in 37 BC the Roman Senate appointed him “King of the Jews.” So, Herod returned to Palestine, raised up an army, and defeated his father’s assassin in battle. Herod’s rule of 33 years was a turbulent one.

Herod was an extremely jealous ruler and his paranoia was legendary. One of his ten wives had a brother who was the high priest. Herod felt threatened by this brother-in-law of his, so he murdered him. Then he killed his wife, too. At one point, he was afraid of a plot against him by two of his sons, so he murdered both of them. He was a brutal, merciless man. So, it’s no wonder that Matthew tells us that Herod was “deeply disturbed” when he learned that a child had been born who was being called “King of the Jews.”

Jeremiah the prophet spoke about Herod’s great atrocity hundreds of years before it happened, “This is what the Lord says: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more.’” (Jeremiah 31:15). Bethlehem was not the only target. Ramah is about as far north of Jerusalem as Bethlehem is south, about 25 miles. You can imagine Herod commanding the solders to kill all the boys that are two years old and younger. When the solders asked, “Where do you want us to begin,” Herod may have said, “Just draw a circle around Jerusalem with a radius that goes as far south as Bethlehem and as far north as Ramah.” He was a madman. The cross looms from the outset. Jesus is a hunted child. Mary, Joseph and Jesus must flee the wrath and brutal response of a cruel ruler who has been duped by the Magi.

Spread the love ♥
Continue Reading

Christmas soaked in blood – 2nd day within the octave of Christmas – Feast of the protomartyr, Stephen – Matthew 10:17-22

Yesterday we celebrated the birth of Our Lord, Jesus. Today we celebrate the triumphant suffering of his soldier, St Stephen. Yesterday our king, clothed in his robe of flesh, left his place in the virgin’s womb and graciously visited the world. Today his soldier leaves the tabernacle of his body and goes triumphantly to heaven.

We must be wondering why is it that a day after the solemnity of Christmas, we celebrate the feast of St. Stephen, deacon and first martyr? Why celebrate the martyrdom of a saint whose account of his suffering and death was truly one that is terrible and painful at the same time. Even more, the Gospel of today itself seems to fracture the Christmas cheer. The Lord seems to draw a desolate picture of split families, the betrayal of parents by children and vice versa.

At first glance, to join the memory of the “protomartyr” and the birth of the Redeemer might seem surprising because of the contrast between the peace and joy of Bethlehem and the tragedy of St. Stephen, stoned in Jerusalem during the first persecution against the nascent Church. In reality, this apparent opposition is surmounted if we analyse in greater depth the mystery of Christmas. The Child Jesus, lying in the cave, is the only-begotten Son of God who became man. He will save humanity by dying on the cross.  

Now we see Him in swaddling clothes in the manger; after His crucifixion, He will again be wrapped in bandages and placed in the sepulchre. It is no accident that the Christmas iconography sometimes represents the divine newborn Child lying in a small sarcophagus, to indicate that the Redeemer was born to die, He was born to give His life in ransom for all.

St. Stephen was one of the original seven deacons chosen by the Church, to be ministers to God’s people, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, and he was a person filled with grace, and with wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit. When, at the age of 30, the Jews accused him of blasphemy, Stephen put his trust in the Lord. Before the Sanhedrin and the High Priest, he answered the charge. He eloquently stood up for the Lord before his accusers. The court sentenced Stephen to death and he accepted death with faith.

Spread the love ♥
Continue Reading