Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A Feast of the Presentation of - - PDF document

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

• Fr. Chad S. Green

Malachi 3:1-4 Mary, Queen of Peace Catholic Church Psalm 24 Sammamish, Washington Hebrews 2:14-18 02 February 2020 (Luke 2:32) Luke 2:22-40 Jesus Is Our Light When Our World Is Gloomy Perhaps some of you have noticed that we’ve been on a bit of a streak of cloudy days

• lately. Does anyone remember when was the last time we had a “sunny” day? Not just a day

that had some sun breaks in it, but a day that the weather experts would classify as a sunny day? A little hint: it was last decade! Way back in the teens, on November 30, 2019, was the last time we had a day that officially qualified as “sunny”. There were a couple news articles I read this past week that drew attention to this streak

• f “gloomy and soggy weather” that we’ve been enduring for now more than two months.1

There are five ways that a day can be categorized: sunny, mostly sunny, partly sunny, mostly cloudy, and cloudy.2 According to these articles, in the past 63 days, 61 have had more than 80% average cloud cover. While the “best” two days still only achieved 70% average cloud cover—just barely qualifying for the category of partly sunny (or, partly cloudy, depending on how you look at things). +++ Even though we only had 30% of sun in the sky on those two days, they were both meaningful days. How so? The first one was December 15th, the Third Sunday of Advent. Recall that the Third Sunday of Advent is also known by its special Latin name: Gaudete

• Sunday. Which means Rejoice!3 We rejoice especially on that Sunday each year because the

Lord is so close to coming into our world on Christmas Day! And, it turns out that the second of the two “best” days during the past two months was December 25th, Christmas Day, itself!

Green 2 02 February 2020 Coincidence? No, not coincidence, but Divine Providence. How fitting that during this streak of gloomy days, God chose to give us just a bit more light on these two days in particular. Two days in which we celebrated the Light of our Savior coming into our darkened world.4 No, it’s not a coincidence. For, as Saint John Paul II said during his visit to Fatima in 1982: “In the designs of Providence, there are no mere coincidences.”5 +++ “Okay, Father Chad…what’s your point? Are you trying to depress us, or what?” I promise, I’m not trying to depress you. Rather, I’d like for us to think back to December 15th. As we rejoiced on that Gaudete Sunday, we had no idea that we were a quarter of the way into a long and gloomy streak. But there was an important lesson we learned that day about light and color. What is the prominent color we experience during Advent? Violet/purple. And then, what is the striking color that suddenly appears amidst the purple on Gaudete Sunday? Rose/pink. My chasuble was pink; the third candle of the Advent Wreath was pink; there were pink flowers in the greens of the wreath; and many of you even wore pink colors on that Sunday. In my homily on that Gaudete Sunday, I described how the window of my dorm room at Mount Angel Seminary in Oregon looked out to the east. I loved to spend time in my morning prayers looking out that window, across the Willamette Valley farmlands, out towards Mount

• Hood. And, on very special days (when it wasn’t 100% cloud cover), I loved to watch the

beautiful sunrise over the Cascade foothills. The dark night sky oh-so-subtly lightens and takes on a slightly paler shade of blue. When that happens, we know the hidden sun is completing its lap around the far side of the

• Earth. It’s getting closer and closer to the horizon. Gradually, the sky beyond the mountains

Green 3 02 February 2020 gets brighter and brighter. The color changes from blue to a purplish color and, finally, to a deep reddish-pink. That blazing red-pink sky is the final stage of sunrise, letting us know that the golden rays of the sun are so close to bursting over the horizon. This natural effect of purple turning to pink just before the sunrise contains the supernatural meaning of Gaudete Sunday. The change from purple to pink in our liturgy is a sign that the Light of our Savior is coming into our darkened world. It’s a sign to us that the long night is coming to an end, and the new Golden Day of Jesus Christ is getting ready to dawn on

• us. And, just as the excitement and joy grow in us when we watch a beautiful sunrise, so, too, do

we grow in excitement and joy as we see the signs of Christ’s Light coming into our world! +++ Today is another celebration of Christ’s Light coming into our world! (And, providentially, it has started off as a fairly sunny day…) Today, we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. We celebrate that forty days after Jesus’ Birth, Mary and Joseph brought Him to the Temple in “Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord.”6 Although Christmas Season has already ended, today is the last day of what was traditionally known as the “Christmas Cycle”. Our observance of this feast on February 2nd each year is one final connection to our recent celebration of Christmas. It only falls on a Sunday like today once every five or six years. So, this year offers us a special opportunity to celebrate this festival of Jesus’ Light in our world. In today’s Gospel, we were introduced to two special people who were waiting for and particularly affected by seeing the Light of our Newborn Savior. Simeon and the Prophetess Anna had been waiting for quite a long time to see the Light. For them, the wait was much longer than our mere 63 days. Anna may have been waiting 60 years or more to see the Light of

Green 4 02 February 2020 Jesus.7 For Simeon, perhaps much longer. An ancient legend declares that Simeon miraculously lived 360 years until he finally saw the Light of Jesus!8 Sixty-three days without seeing the light

• f a sunny day doesn’t seem so long now, does it?

+++ What was that moment like for Anna and Simeon? After years, decades, perhaps centuries of waiting, what did they feel in that moment? What was the look on their faces? Did

• thers see them and take notice? Did they come over to join in the excitement? Were they, too,

drawn to the Light of Christ in that moment? Once again, on this celebration of Light in a gloomy time, we can turn to the example of a sunrise for a notion of what Simeon and Anna felt when they saw the Light of Christ dawn upon them. Just a few days ago, on Thursday morning, did any of you happen to see the spectacular sunrise? When I looked out my window that Thursday morning, something looked different. There was something different about the clouds in the sky. Rather than the usual tones of drak gray and light gray, they were slightly pink. A sign from Heaven that the dark and gloom of night was ending, and that something spectacular was on its way! I had to sit down and watch it

• unfold. What would have been a beautiful sunrise on any morning was that much more

magnificent after 63 consecutive gloomy days. I’m sure many of you also took notice, and we weren’t the only ones. I saw several of my neighbors walk out of their apartments into the early morning cold so that they could take in the blazing pink glory and snap pictures to remember and share it. Furthermore, #SeattleSunrise was trending on social media that morning, as hundreds of people posted pictures and made comments about what they were experiencing. These are some examples of what people tweeted:

Green 5 02 February 2020  “i gasped on the way to work this morning. it was an epic sunrise.”  “Breaking (news): We have a sunrise in #Seattle today. I repeat...the sun does exist.”  “The world today seems dark. But here is a (beautiful) sunrise…this morning.”  “Have you ever seen a #Sunrise so beautiful you can’t even take a picture because it wouldn’t do it justice? One so amazing that it makes you say ‘wow’ out-loud to yourself?! That’s me right now #Seattle.” Finally, leave it to the National Weather Service to splash a dose of reality onto the beautiful

• morning. They wrote:

 “Enjoy the dry weather while it lasts-the next system arrives this afternoon.” And, boy, were they right! +++ These joyful reactions from folks like you and me at seeing a beautiful sunrise in the midst of a gloomy streak of days, they give us an idea of what it would have been like to be there

• n that holy day when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem. What it

might’ve been like to witness the Light of the world dawning upon Simeon, Anna, and all those who were blessed to be there and see Him. The reaction that we feel at seeing a beautiful sunrise, it’s a gift from God. But it’s also a sign from God. The beautiful things in nature are signs to us that reveal the Beauty of the One who created our world. The joy we feel and the way we are attracted to beautiful things in nature demonstrates how our hearts are made for communion with God, and His Beauty, and His Truth, and His Love.9 And when our world seems dark and gloomy and far from God—that’s just when God sends His Light into our world to show us that He is on His way to save us! Yes, there are times when our world is gloomy and dark. But God doesn’t leave us in gloom and darkness. When the sun rises each morning, it’s a daily reminder of God’s Presence and God’s Promise. God promised to be with us.10 God promised to send His Light into our world.11 To take away our darkness. To save us from death. To set us free from sin.12 To show

Green 6 02 February 2020 us the way to Him. And to bring us with Him safely into the Eternal Light of His Heavenly Kingdom! Two stages of sunrise from my apartment window on 30 January 2020. An even better picture of the sunrise from an anonymous person on same day.

1 Pedram Javaheri, “It’s sunless in Seattle as city weathers one of the gloomiest stretches in recent history”, CNN

(29 Jan 2020) (www.cnn.com/2020/01/29/weather/seattle-gloomy-cloudy-rain-trnd/index.html)

Green 7 02 February 2020

Also see: Scott Sistek, “Seattle's rainy January winding down”, KOMO News (27 Jan 2020) (komonews.com/weather/scotts-weather-blog/seattle-status-check-still-rainy-still-havent-had-a-sunny-day-in- nearly-2-months)

2 Matt Soniak, “What’s the Difference between ‘Mostly Sunny’ and ‘Partly Cloudy’?”, Mental Floss: Weather

Watch (27 June 2017): https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/56820/whats-difference-between-mostly-sunny-and- partly-cloudy

3 Ordo: Order of Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours and Celebration of the Eucharist 2020 (p. 13):

“…the Third Sunday of Advent, is traditionally known as Gaudete Sunday, so-called from the first word of the antiphon at the Introit. Gaudete (‘Rejoice’), taken from the Latin translation of Phil 4:4-5, sets a tone of joyful expectation for the Lord’s birth and Second Coming, as does the permitted use of rose-colored vestments.”

4 See John 1:5-9: “…the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. A man named John was

sent from God. He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”

5 13 May 1982, on the first anniversary of Mehmet Ali Agca's assassination attempt on his life. 6 Luke 2:22 7 Luke 2:36-37 8 Luke 2:25-26

Also see: “Holy, Righteous Simeon the God-Receiver”, The Orthodox Church in America (www.oca.org/saints/lives/2013/02/03/100409-holy-righteous-simeon-the-god-receiver): “Ancient historians tell us that the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.) wished to include texts of Holy Scripture in the famous Library at Alexandria. He invited scholars from Jerusalem, and the Sanhedrin sent their wise men. The Righteous Simeon was one of the seventy scholars who came to Alexandria to translate the Holy Scriptures into Greek. The completed work was called ‘The Septuagint’, and is the version of the Old Testament used by the Orthodox Church. Saint Simeon was translating a book of the Prophet Isaiah, and read the words: ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a Son’ (Is 7:14). He thought that ‘virgin’ was inaccurate, and he wanted to correct the text to read ‘woman’. At that moment an angel appeared to him and held back his hand saying, ‘You shall see these words fulfilled. You shall not die until you behold Christ the Lord born of a pure and spotless Virgin.’ From this day, Saint Simeon lived in expectation of the Promised Messiah. One day, the righteous Elder received a revelation from the Holy Spirit, and came to the Temple. It was on the very day (the fortieth after the Birth of Christ) when the All-Pure Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph had come to the Temple in order to perform the ritual prescribed by Jewish Law. When Saint Simeon beheld their arrival, the Holy Spirit revealed to him that the divine Child held by the All-Pure Virgin Mary was the Promised Messiah, the Savior of the world. The Elder took the Child in his arms and said, ‘Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory

• f Thy people Israel’ (Luke 2:29-32).

The holy righteous Simeon the God-Receiver died at a great age (Tradition says he was 360).”

9 See Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC):

27: The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for: The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator (Vatican Council II, Gaudium et Spes 19§1). 30: “Let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice” (Ps 105:3). Although man can forget God or reject him, He never ceases to call every man to seek him, so as to find life and happiness. But this search for God demands of man every effort of intellect, a sound will, “an upright heart”, as well as the witness of others who teach him to seek God. You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is your power and your wisdom is without measure. And man, so small a part of your creation, wants to praise you: this man, though clothed with mortality and bearing the evidence of sin and the proof that you withstand the proud. Despite everything, man, though but a small a part of your creation, wants to praise you. You yourself encourage him to delight in your praise, for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you (St. Augustine, Confessions 1,1,1). 32: The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world's order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.

Green 8 02 February 2020

As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to

• them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been

clearly perceived in the things that have been made (Rom 1:19-20; cf. Acts 14:15, 17; 17:27-28; Wis 13:1-9). And St. Augustine issues this challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky…question all these realities. All respond: “See, we are beautiful.” Their beauty is a profession [confessio]. These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One [Pulcher] who is not subject to change (St. Augustine, Sermo 241, 2)? 45: Man is made to live in communion with God in whom he finds happiness: When I am completely united to you, there will be no more sorrow or trials; entirely full of you, my life will be complete (St. Augustine, Conf. 10, 28, 39).

10 Matthew 1:21-23: “‘She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their

sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us.’” Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign; the young woman, pregnant and about to bear a son, shall name him Emmanuel.”

11 Luke 2:32: “…a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.”

Isaiah 42:6: “…a light for the nations…” Isaiah 49:6: “I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

12 Hebrews 2:14-15: “Now since the children share in blood and flesh, he likewise shared in them, that through death

he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who through fear of death had been subject to slavery all their life.”