Text: Luke 2:22-32
Date: Presentation/Purification + 2/2/07
This is one of those feasts when Holy Church imitates the actual span of time of New Testament events. Though we make no article of faith about it or even claim that December 25 was the date of the birth of our Lord, we do claim that He, indeed, was born of the Virgin Mary on a particular day in the history of our world, in a particular place in the geography of our world. It is no accident, then, that the conception of our Lord is celebrated on March 25, exactly nine months before Christmas. Similarly, we celebrate the circumcision of our Lord on the eighth day after Christmas, January 1. So today we mark the 40th day after his birth when Mary and Joseph faithfully fulfilled the Law of the Torah for the rite of her purification and the presentation of their first-born son in the temple at Jerusalem. As Jesus was most surely circumcised in the town of his birth, Bethlehem, so this is His first visit and appearance in the temple. (more…)