{"id":1288,"date":"2014-02-02T12:42:32","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T17:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1288"},"modified":"2014-02-02T12:42:32","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T17:42:32","slug":"homily-presentation-of-the-lord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/homily-presentation-of-the-lord\/","title":{"rendered":"Homily – Presentation of the Lord"},"content":{"rendered":"

Presentation of the Lord<\/a>
\nMalachi 3:1-4
\nHebrews 2:14-18
\nLuke 2:22-40
\nFebruary 2, 2014<\/p>\n

Normally we would be celebrating the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time today but instead we are celebrating the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.<\/p>\n

There are not many feast days that take precedence over our normal Sunday celebrations.\u00a0 The way the secular calendar aligns with the church calendar, there will be four or five this year.<\/p>\n

So, if it is uncommon for this to happen, what makes this feast so important?<\/p>\n

First, today is forty days after Jesus\u2019 birth at Christmas.\u00a0 In the Jewish customs of Jesus\u2019 day, forty days after the birth of a child, the mother went to the temple for a purification ritual and the male children were brought to the temple to be consecrated to the Lord.\u00a0 These are the events that we hear about in today\u2019s gospel.<\/p>\n

With its ties to the birth of Jesus, this feast used to mark the end of the Christmas season, highlighting the importance of this feast.<\/p>\n

When this feast was still part of the Christmas season, the blessing of candles became part of the celebration.\u00a0 In Simeon\u2019s words in the temple he identifies Jesus as \u201ca light for revelation to the Gentiles.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Jesus is our light in that through him we see things differently.\u00a0 We regularly use candles to remind us of the Light of Christ.\u00a0 Every time we celebrate Mass we use candles to symbolize Jesus becoming present in the Eucharist.<\/p>\n

We always have a sanctuary lamp with a candle burning next to the tabernacle to signify Jesus is present.\u00a0 We also use the Paschal Candle at Easter and for baptisms and funerals to remind us how we receive the Light of Christ in baptism and carry that light to our death.<\/p>\n

Just like we use candles to remind us of Jesus, we use other \u201cthings\u201d in our sacraments.\u00a0 We use water, oils, and bread and wine.\u00a0 Let\u2019s face it, we are a sacramental<\/i> people.<\/p>\n

Please note that I said sacramental<\/i>, not sacrament.\u00a0 We have our seven sacraments where we receive God\u2019s grace in very special ways.<\/p>\n

But being a sacramental people goes beyond the sacraments.\u00a0 It is to see God present in the things around us, not just candles, water, and the bread and wine but also in the flowers and the trees and the animals.<\/p>\n

As a sacramental people we are also people of ritual.\u00a0 It should be no secret to anyone that in the Catholic Church that we have a lot of rituals and devotions.<\/p>\n

Following rituals is not something new with Jesus.\u00a0 The Jews had many rituals, many of which are found in the Book of the Leviticus.\u00a0 The presentation in the temple is one of those rituals.<\/p>\n

Our rituals are important as moments of special connection with God.\u00a0 God is always present with us but our sacraments, rituals, and devotions are all meant to help us be aware of God\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n

Thus, these rituals are important for us.\u00a0 People who realize our society is in decline ask why?\u00a0 I think a significant part of this is that we have lost this sense of ritual.\u00a0 It\u2019s as basic as our attendance at Mass.\u00a0 If we don\u2019t arrange our lives to make it to Mass each week, we say the ritual isn\u2019t so important.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time the sense of ritual has declined.\u00a0 Our first reading today comes from the Book of the Prophet Malachi.\u00a0 It is the last book in the Old Testament.\u00a0 People, including the priests are not keeping the prescribed rituals yet they wonder why things keep getting worse.<\/p>\n

Ritual is important.\u00a0 When we get busy, it\u2019s easy to lose sign of the importance of ritual.\u00a0 It can become something we simply do out of obligation.\u00a0 We forget why we do the ritual.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we don\u2019t see the value of our rituals or we feel like we don\u2019t get anything out of our ritual because we don\u2019t understand why we are doing these things.\u00a0 The rituals we do are based on symbolism and tradition.\u00a0 If you want to understand better our postures and practices at Mass you can find out more on my website, renewaloffaith.org, or by asking questions.<\/p>\n

When we know why we do \u201cstuff\u201d we can find new meaning so that the rituals we celebrate can bring us closer to God.<\/p>\n

And is God not what we seek?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Presentation of the Lord Malachi 3:1-4 Hebrews 2:14-18 Luke 2:22-40 February 2, 2014 Normally we would be celebrating the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time today but instead we are celebrating the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. There are not many feast days that take precedence over our normal Sunday celebrations.\u00a0 The way the …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Homily – Presentation of the Lord’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-kM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1289,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions\/1289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}