Feast Day: November 21
Religious parents never fail by devout prayer to
consecrate their children to the divine service
and love, both before and after their birth.
Some amongst the Jews, not content with this
general consecration of their children, offered
them to God in their infancy, by the hands of
the priests in the temple, to be lodged in
apartments belonging to the temple, and brought
up in attending the priests and Levites in the
sacred ministry. It is an ancient tradition,
that the Blessed Virgin Mary was thus solemnly
offered to God in the temple in her infancy.[1]
This festival of the Presentation of the Blessed
Virgin, or, as it is often called by the Greeks,
the entrance of the Blessed Virgin into the
Temple, is mentioned in the most ancient Greek
Menologies extant.
By
the consecration which the Blessed Virgin made of herself to God in
the first use which she made of her reason, we are admonished of the
most important and strict obligation which all persons lie under, of
an early dedication of themselves to the divine love and service. It
is agreed amongst all masters of Christian morality, that everyone
is bound in the first moral instant of the use of reason to convert
his heart to God by love; and if divine faith be then duly proposed
to him (which is the case of Christian children) by a supernatural
assent to it, he is bound then to make an act of faith; also an act
of hope in God as a supernatural rewarder and helper, and an act of
divine charity. Who can be secure that in the very moment in which
he entered into his moral life and was capable of living to God, did
not stain his innocence by a capital omission of this duty? How
diligent and solicitous are parents bound to be in instructing their
children in the first fundamental mysteries of faith, and in the
duty of prayer, and in impressing upon their tender minds a sense of
spiritual things in a manner in which their age may be capable of
receiving it. These first fruits of the heart are a sacrifice of
which God is infinitely jealous, an emblem of which were all the
sacrifices of first fruits prescribed in the old law, in token that
he is our beginning and last end. Such a heart, adorned with the
baptismal grace of innocence, has particular charms. Grace recovered
by penance is not like that of innocence which has never been
defiled; nor is it the same happiness for a soul to return to God
from the slavery of sin, as for one to give him her first
affections, and to open her understanding and will to his love
before the world has found any entrance there. The tender soul of
Mary was then adorned with the most precious graces, an object of
astonishment and praise to the angels, and of the highest
complacence to the adorable Trinity, the Father looking upon her as
his beloved daughter, the Son, as one chosen and prepared to become
his mother, and the Holy Ghost as his darling spouse.
Her first
presentation to God, made by the hands of her parents and by her own
devotion, was then an offering most acceptable in his sight. Let our
consecration of ourselves to God be made under her patronage, and
assisted by her powerful intercession and the union of her merits.
If we have reason to fear that we criminally neglected this duty at
the first dawning of our reason, or, if we have since been
unfaithful to our sacred baptismal engagements, such is the mercy
and goodness of our gracious God, that he disdains not our late
offerings. But that these may be accepted by him, we must first
prepare the present he requires of us, that is, our hearts. They
must be washed and cleansed in the sacred laver of Christ's adorable
blood, by means of sincere compunction and penance; and all
inordinate affections must be pared away by our perfectly renouncing
in spirit, honours, riches, and pleasures, and being perfectly
disengaged from creatures, and ready to do and suffer all for God,
that we may be entirely his, and that neither the world nor pride,
nor any irregular passion may have any place in us. What secret
affections to this or that creature lurk in our souls, which hinder
us from being altogether his, unless they are perfectly cut off or
reformed! This Mary did by spending her youth in holy retirement, at
a distance from the commerce and corruption of the world, and by the
most assiduous application to all the duties and exercises of a
religious and interior life. Mary was the first who set up the
standard of virginity; and, by consecrating it by a perpetual vow to
our Lord, she opened the way to all virgins who have since followed
her example. They, in particular, ought to take her for their
special patroness, and, as her life was the most perfect model of
their state, they ought always to have her example before their
eyes, and imitate her in prayer, humility, modesty, silence, and
retirement.
Mary lived retired
until she was introduced into the world and espoused to St. Joseph.
Some think her espousals were at first only a promise or betrothing:
but the ends assigned by the fathers, seem rather to show them to
have been a marriage. These are summed up by St. Jerome as
follows:[2] that by the pedigree of Joseph, the descent of Mary from
the tribe of Juda, might be demonstrated; that she might not be
stoned by the Jews as an adulteress; that, fleeing into Egypt, she
might have the comfort and protection of a spouse. A fourth reason,
says St. Jerome, is added by the martyr Ignatius: that the birth of
the Son of God might be concealed from the devil. The words of that
apostolic father are: "Three mysteries wrought by God in silence
were concealed from the prince of this world. the virginity of Mary,
the bringing forth of her Son, and the death of the Lord."[3] Not
that God could fear any impediment to his designs from the devil;
but he was pleased to effect these mysteries in silence and without
worldly show and noise, that pride and hell might, by his all-wise
and sweet providence, be more meetly triumphed over, whilst the
devil himself hastened his own overthrow by concurring to the
mystery of the cross. From the marriage of the Blessed Virgin and
St. Joseph, St. Austin shows[4] that marriage requires no more than
the mutual consent of the will between parties who lie under no
impediment or inability to an indissoluble individual society of
life. In this holy marriage we admire the incomparable chastity of
Mary and Joseph; and the sanctity and honour, as well as the
patronage and example, which that holy state receives from this
mystery. In certain particular churches the espousals of the Virgin
Mary and St. Joseph are honoured with an office on the 23rd of
January.
Endnotes
1 See St. Greg. of
Nyssa, Serm. In Nat. Christ., p. 779.
2 In c. 1, Mat. p. 7,
ed. Ben
3 St. Ignat. ep. ad
Ephes. p. 16.
4 St. Aug. lib. de
Nuptits et Concup. c. 11, n. 13, p. 287.
(Taken from Vol. III
of "The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints" by
the Rev. Alban Butler.)
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
Copyright © 2006- SCTJM
