The Gift of Hope

The Presentation of the Lord. Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe encourages us to look forward with hope.

The great feasts of our faith are often linked to the annual drama of the rise and fall of sunlight. Epiphany, for example, falls on the first day that the sun begins to rise earlier. The days had been getting longer for a while, but only about the feast of the three wise men coming from the east, do we see an earlier dawn.

Today’s feast, Candlemas, is half way between the shortest day of the year and the spring equinox. The winter is beginning to let go of its grip, but there is not yet much sign of the spring. The balance of the year is discreetly tipping over towards light and warmth and new growth.

In the Middle Ages, on this day Scandinavians celebrated that bears were waking up after a good hibernation, stretching their paws and thinking of breakfast. In America it is groundhog day. Snowdrops are unfurling themselves. They are also called Candlemas bells. They are the tiny, easily missed signs that spring is coming, even though it does not feel like it.

So why do we celebrate the Presentation on this day in the solar calendar? Because after Israel’s long winter, there was a first small sign of the spring for which she had yearned. The Lord comes to his Temple. But hardly anyone noticed, except for a couple of old people. In Rembrandt’s painting of the scene, the Temple is a vast gloomy building. A little group with the Holy Family is bathed in light but the crowds are unaware.

The Lord comes as an ordinary baby. He does not have a special sign or tattoo like Harry Potter. He is just like all the other babies. How is that two old people spot him? Because they had gone on hoping all through the long years. They lived through the long winter of God’s apparent absence, but did not despair. In a wonderful interview not long before his death, Carl Jung said that if the old live in the past, they die before their death. But if their eyes are open to the future, they are wonderfully alive even as death approaches.

Simeon and Anna let themselves be surprised. God does not come as expected, as the fiery judge described by Malachi in the first reading. He comes as a gift. The presentation of Jesus is a fourfold gift. Mary and Joseph give the child to God. God gives them back their child, and they give God the sacrifice of two doves, the offering of poor people; God gives the salvation for which His people long. God’s grace frees us to be givers, even to God. So, the first sign of a new springtime is this barely visible scene of mutual gifting. If we want to see it in our time, our eyes must be open to surprising gifts.

In the Church, we have been going through a long winter too. The horrible scandal of the sexual abuse crisis; people falling away from faith. There are no obvious signs of a new spring. We are regularly told by the experts that we are living in a post-Christian country.

But if, like Simeon and Anna, we keep our eyes open and let God surprise us, we shall see God’s springtime budding. It says in the preface for Holy Men and Women: ‘You renew the Church in every age by raising up men and women outstanding in holiness.’ Already there are young people who will renew the Church, though we might not spot them. Alasdair MacIntyre, the Canadian philosopher, said that the West needed a new St Benedict. He is probably already with us.

There is probably already a new Dominic and Francis of Assisi, and a new Teresa of Avila and Mother Theresa of Calcutta but they will not be as we expect. The Lord is coming us in our winter in the gift of young people who will do things we never imagined. So when our time comes, like Simeon we can depart in peace.

Readings: Malachi 3:1-4 | Hebrews 2:14-18 | Luke 2:22-40

Image: Simeon’s Song of Praise in the Temple by Rembrandt (1631) photographed by Sailko (CC BY 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons