Considerations from the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

FEBRUARY 2 is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord which is 40 days after his birth. Again, the number 40 appears in this occasion. In the Bible, this number appears 158 times and lends itself to a number of meanings, from a period of testing, trial or probation, to a period of growth and attainment of a new life, a transformation, etc. 

 This feast commemorates the occasion when Our Lady, in obedience to Jewish law, went to the Temple in Jerusalem both to be purified after giving birth and to consecrate her son, Jesus, as her firstborn. (cfr. Lk 2,22-38) 

 Many precious lessons can be derived from this feast, among them the fact that Our Lady, and much less Jesus Christ, who clearly would have no need to submit to that law, just went ahead with it, without taking advantage of the privilege she clearly enjoyed, and avoiding any sense of entitlement. 

 This is an example worth emulating. We may be quite privileged in life because of the many gifts and other endowments God and others may have given us, but we should never feel entitled to anything. Instead, our attitude toward these privileges should be one of willingness to serve more, doing a lot of good while passing unnoticed, and all for the glory of God and for the good of all. 

 This feast can also be considered as another epiphany, another manifestation of Christ as our savior. This time, the manifestation is done not to the three magi anymore, but to two characters, Simeon and Anna. 

 The feast is a good reminder to all of us, Christian believers, that we have a duty to present Christ to everyone as he truly is to us—the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our humanity that has been damaged by sin.

 While this duty is incumbent on every Christian believer, it is more so to clerics and other consecrated and religious persons. The priest, for example, is sacramentally conformed to Christ as head of the Church. It is his concern that the sacramental Christ in him be transformed into the living Christ—obviously with the constant help of God’s grace. Otherwise, he will be an empty suit. 

 He has to assume the very mind and heart of Christ, the sentiments, mission and concerns of Christ. As the sacramental image of Christ as head of the Church, a priest has to act like a mediator, a bridge that connects two ends—God and men. He therefore has to be intimately identified with both God and men, which is a never-ending task that requires grace and everything that a priest can do. 

 Like Christ, he has to have the mind of God and assume the conditions of men, since this is the very heart of Christ. This, of course, can be hard and very demanding, but it is not impossible. With training and determined effort, this can be done. On God’s part, his grace is never lacking. In fact, it is poured out abundantly. 

 We who believe in Christ should feel the need to make Christ alive everywhere. And given the current conditions in the world, we have to learn how to present him by making use of the new technologies we are having these days. 

 We should feel the same urgency that St. Paul felt when he said, “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel. (1 Cor 9,16) It’s a cry that also has to spring in each one of us, who now participates in the abiding duty of preaching and teaching the word of God according to our personal circumstances.

The true value of the little ordinary things

WITH Christ comparing the Kingdom of God with a seed that is planted and that needs to be taken care of until it grows and bears fruit, (cfr. Mk 4,26-34) we are clearly reminded that this whole business of sanctification, which is how we start to be part of the God’s kingdom, will always begin in the little ordinary things of our life. 

 When we manage to see God in the little things and be urged to follow his will in carrying out our duties toward them, then we would indeed by on the right path toward our final destination which is to be with God in heaven. 

 We just have to learn to find Christ in the little things which comprise most of our day, if not of our whole life. This is not a gratuitous, baseless assertion, an act of fantasizing, of hunting lions in the corridors of the house. 

 This is as real and true as can be. Of course, it requires faith, but if we care to listen to faith, we will, in fact, find it reasonable and practicable, not something quixotic, cocooned in the realm of the abstract, the absurd and the impossible. Christ is all at the same time our creator, savior and model, and as such he can never be absent but is always present in all things, big and small. 

 Sad to say, Christ’s parables comparing the Kingdom of God to a seed seem to still be a breaking news to many of us who have the tendency to disparage little and ordinary things in our life.

 We should then try to make the necessary changes in attitude and understanding regarding the little things. We have to realize that it is actually in them where our true knowledge and love of God is developed and maintained. 

 When we fail to see, know and love God in the little things, it is very likely that we also will fail to see, know and love God in the big things of our life. Let’s keep in mind what Christ said in this regard: “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much.” (Lk 16,10) 

 In short, the point we should realize more deeply is that sanctity, our ticket to heaven, certainly requires heroism, even to the point of martyrdom. But we can be sure that by being consistently loving in doing the little things of life, especially when they are hidden and unappreciated humanly, we would already be very heroic indeed, even approaching the level of martyrdom. 

 What we have to do is to learn to find Christ in the little things which comprise most of our day, if not of our whole life. Another way of saying it is to learn to refer everything to Christ, no matter how little or insignificant it is. 

 We should always be with Christ at every moment of our day, offering things to him, asking him questions like, “Lord, how should I deal with this particular situation, be it an exciting work, a boring and tiring moment, etc.?” 

 We should never dare to do things simply on our own. Especially when we find ourselves in difficulties, in a quandary, in moments of temptation, etc., we have to go to Christ as quickly as possible and cling to him as tightly as possible. 

 And we should never forget to thank him all the time, for such gesture connects us with him in an abiding way. When we are with Christ especially in the little things of our day, how can we doubt about having heaven in us while still here on earth?

Piety of children and doctrine of theologians

WHEN Christ said that a lamp is not placed under a bushel basket or under a under, but rather on a lampstand, (cfr. Mk 4,21) we are clearly made to understand that if we are to be true followers of Christ we should faithfully and abidingly show the light of Christ everywhere. 

 For this to happen we should have both the piety of simple children and the solid doctrinal knowledge of our faith, like that of a good theologian. We have to qualify the theologian part since we sadly now are witnessing the emergence of so-called theologians who spew out their own ideas more than anything else. Their theology is not so much a fruit of their personal relationship with Christ as it is simply their own making. 

 We need to see the vital connection between Christ and the doctrine that we need to study and meditate on. Hopefully, we assimilate this doctrine such that it becomes flesh of our flesh, which is another way of saying that we should so identify ourselves with Christ that we become “another Christ” as we should be. 

 Our usual problem is that we tend to disconnect the two, raising all sorts of reasons why such vital link between God and the doctrine cannot be possible, if not always, then from time to time. 

 There’s obviously some point to why the doctrine cannot fully capture Christ and his teachings. And that’s because of the human elements involved in the doctrine. But in spite of that, we need to realize that in its substance and in its core, the doctrine is actually divine. 

 We just have to know how to distinguish between its divine character and its human elements that would unavoidably include some limitations. This is actually our human condition. 

 Truth is God always intervenes in our life and makes use of our humanity to come and be with us. We should not waste time making a big fuss about the human limitations that accompany this abiding divine intervention. 

 That’s why God through Christ in the Spirit has endowed the Church with the proper power and authority to teach his doctrine integrally and infallibly, much like we as a nation entrust our government with certain power to govern us in spite of the many limitations in the men running the government. 

 Except that in the case of God in relation to the Church, the act of empowering goes far more radically than what takes place in our empowering of our government to rule over us. 

 We need to consider the Church doctrine as the true and most precious doctrine that can bring us to our ultimate joy and end. It is not just a man-made doctrine that can give us some benefits and advantages, some social or economic progress, but not our ultimate supernatural end. 

 We also need to see the Church doctrine as the proper spirit that should animate any human doctrine we may make for some practical purpose we may have in the different aspects of our life—personal, family, professional, social, political, etc. 

 Thus, it is essential that we learn to know the Church doctrine or the doctrine of our faith such that this doctrine becomes the moving spirit behind our every thought, word and deed, behind our every plan and project, big or small, ordinary or extraordinary. 

 There is need for us to know how to relate the doctrine of our faith to our daily affairs and to our very serious and big projects and plans, and vice versa. At the moment, this expertise is hardly known, its need hardly felt.