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Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons: 2 February 2025


Menologion of Basil - Wiki Image

Menologion of Basil - Wiki Image

The Presentation of the Lord

1. Light

Somehow this feast is suffused with different forms of light, there is the direct light of Christ himself, whose meeting with Simeon and Anna in the Temple is celebrated by the Christian tradition of processing with candles, symbolising our eagerness, like the wise and virtuous bridesmaids with lamps lit, to go out and meet the Great Bridegroom, Christ our Saviour, Christ our true light! But here the story changes to something more than a simple meeting, for each character in Luke's gospel story reflects other more diffused lights leads us to another meeting, that of a deeper understanding of what is the encounter of ourselves with Salvation itself.

In this feast, the bridegroom we meet is not a grown up man, simply a helpless baby revealed to us all as the promised messiah by two devout elders who come out of the shadows to reflect in their faces the light and love of the King of Glory held in the hands of a faithful and religious `Simeon. If we truly contemplate this event we can be forgiven for being surprised, but we still have to ask this question: Why is it so that this meeting of God-in-Christ with us, is essential and fundamental to our own human development, not least in enlightening us in terms of faith?

2. The Characters involved

Luke's Gospel gives us several characters to examine; the parents of Jesus, come for the ritual purification of Mary after childbirth, and as the Torah requires, the redemption of their first born son Jesus. A reminder that Mary and Joseph were obedient to and lived by the Torah . The poor turtle doves to be sacrificed also hold a gentle light, innocent, and offering on behalf of Jesus the first born. They link all the innocent deaths of victims throughout history with that of Jesus who himself will redeem us all as they did him. They were also poor offerings of a family whose existence was simple, yet all the more powerful for that, a reminder of the true love the Holy One has for the little ones of life. If we care to make another gentle connection, the sacrificed doves are also a precursor of that symbol of the Holy Spirit, the dove descending!

There is also the hinted, glowing light found in character of the Temple itself. This is the place of great liturgy, of festival gatherings, of the daily sung praises of the Most High accompanied by the ritual blood and incense sacrifices . Here too is the mercy seat of God, hidden in the Holy of Holies, the very antechamber of the presence of God. In this feast the mercy seat is found not in the building called the Holy of Holies, but amongst the least of us all in the human form of the baby. In this meeting of Child and Temple, glory meets glory and the end product is a fusion of divine and love, a light that burns brightly for ever. Within the setting of this Temple Simeon and Anna appear, they are not adjuncts but central and key figures in the proclamation of the `Messiah come to us, more that that they are c ompatible figures, Simeon recognises the Christ in the child held tenderly in his arms, he has been promised that he will not see death till the Messiah comes, and Anna, the old w one, confirms the revelation but then goes out to proclaim the message she has found and received.

3. Growing old

These are the elements of our feast, each has a relationship with the Christ, each is a symbol of the many facets of light and love, yes even the innocent victimhood of the doves, and we are left to enter the picture, to think and ponder on what is there . It is a story that should join together the ages of any human persons life journey, birth, childhood, adulthood, but above all in Simeon and Anna, the transformative vocation of the elderly amongst us, one where their experience and wisdom is so valuable, whose life of 'doing' is changed in to a life of 'being'. It is a challenge to the elderly to allow the natural quality of their lives to be as a light helping others see their way, in particular with the gift of the inner knowledge we so need to understand a human heart and soul, and the light of experience that measures its strength not in power but in love. Simeon and Anna also challenge the young to be more open to the surprises of God in life, that the Holy One is not way out there silent and remote, but here, held in Simeon's hands, is understood as our God, who gives without measure and allows us to freely receive.

Lectio

Poem: My Song of Simeon

Fr Robin Gibbons

Down the months of days

Across the different years,

I search for You,

The One I call Lord

The One I know so vaguely

The One I cannot clearly see


Down the minutes of my life

All those restless moments

Of joys and sorrows mixed together

You were always there

Walking with me and others

But I did not fully understand.

In those still times of my heart-prayer,

in those dark nights awakened

Restlessly searching,

Asking You questions

That never seem to be answered,

It was then fragile and heart pierced

I saw the Morning Star.


On this Sunday for `Grandparents and the Elderly'

Poem By Fr Robin Gibbons

I have seen salvation!


Though we are old, sometimes difficult to deal with,

We are as you, the young and middle aged, flesh and blood.

Our minds can be cloudy, our frailty a problem,

but never dismiss us, never ignore.

For though the young can run the race swiftly,

and as Daniel are allowed to judge the elders,

never give them the last word,

for they have not finished that true race,

they have not felt the weight of sorrow

as we do so frequently upon us,

nor have they been chosen as Simeon and Anna

to see salvation in the baby,

or accept preposterous gifts from God

like Abram and Sara

or Joachim and Anne.

Youth, middle age, and old age are one whole,

the one rhythm of every season.

And, until we die, for us who are old

each day is a kind of harvest of 'Hope' for you

our glimpsing of salvation not so very far away.

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