The Purification
I. In consequence of Adam’s sin the origin of life was tainted; a curse had fallen on maternity. The child, the delight and hope of his parents, was a new addition to the ranks of sinners, and an heir to labour and sorrow. The mother’s pride was accompanied by deep humiliation. She was accounted unclean, and for forty or eighty days she remained in seclusion, forbidden to enter the temple of God or touch any holy thing. Then she came as a transgressor to offer sacrifice for sin, and to be readmitted to the privileges she had lost.
The Blessed Virgin was the first exception; in bearing her Divine Son, the Holy One of God, she had contracted no defilement actual or legal. She was the first one exempt from the law, but she submitted with wonderful humility to conceal her claims. Rather than contract defilement, she had been ready to forego the glory of the Divine Maternity, and now she resigns the credit of that which she valued so much, and places herself in the ranks of ordinary women.
How strange that she, the Immaculate, should be accounted unclean, and secluded from all that was holy, because infinite Holiness had taken up its abode with her! So, in this world, must holiness always be secret, and the presence of God pass unrecognized. Nay, God’s favours often become a reproach, fidelity is accounted a crime, good deeds bring more hostility on us than our sins. If this should happen to you for God’s sake, “rejoice and be exceeding glad” (Matt. v. 12).
II. A second ceremony was the offering of the first-born son to God, as a tithe of thanksgiving for the deliverance from the avenging angel in Egypt. The Presentation of Jesus was the first instalment of His Sacrifice. He was carried to the temple, and there, by the hands of His Mother, was offered to His heavenly Father as the ransom which was to save us all from captivity and death. He was not merely the first-born of one family, nor of the Jewish nation, but of all mankind; and He was offered as their substitute to sanctify them.
The Holy Virgin in this mystery represents the Church and all humanity, offering in their name the Son of Man. No such sacrifice of sweet savour had ever before taken place in the temple; no priestly hands had ever been raised to God so stainless as those of the Blessed Mother who came ostensibly to be purified. Praise her for this high ministry which she fulfilled in the development of the work of Redemption. Ask her to exercise it in your behalf, to offer her Son for you, to offer you to Him.
III. Under this obscurity and humiliation there was accomplished a prophecy long expected by the Jews. The prophets had said: “Presently the Lord whom you seek and the Angel of the Testament whom you desire shall come to His temple … and who shall stand to see Him?” (Mal. iii. 1–2); and again: “I will move all nations; and the Desired of all nations shall come; and I will fill this house with glory: saith the Lord of hosts” (Agg. ii. 8).
Doubtless a grand manifestation had been designed by the Almighty. But the Jews had failed of their vocation, and hardened their hearts against their Messias. Necessarily, therefore, the great event was not carried out manifestly and magnificently, but in the measure required by their limited capacity. Only a few were able to look beneath the outward form, and see the hidden glory of the occasion; they were the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, Simeon and Anna.
So it often happens that the accomplishment does not seem to correspond to the splendour of divine promise, and many take scandal thereat. But our acts have limited the manifestation of God, and curtailed its due effects. The judgment-day will show how different the course of history would have been, how bountiful the fulfilment of promise, and how successful all human life, if men had only been faithful to God, and guided themselves by His law.
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