Fr Marco Lazzaron
uke tells us of a very important event in Jesus’ life that reveals his full belonging to the people of the covenant and to God: the presentation at the Temple. Following the Law of Moses (cf. Ex 13,2-12-15; Nm 3,13), forty days after the birth, the firstborn son was to be presented at the Temple. In the same way, Jesus’ parents go to the Temple of Jerusalem and offer him to the Lord. For the first time, Jesus enters his Father’s house. This event is celebrated by an elderly man, Simeon, who led by the Spirit goes to meet this young family not with the classic greeting formulas nor with words of circumstance, but in a special way.
Jesus is seen as a light that illuminates the people still immersed in the darkness of ignorance, of idolatry, of their condition of being fatherless, and he is seen as glory with which the people of Israel were crowned because they were chosen by God to be a royal priesthood and a holy nation. In Jesus, Simeon sees the presence of God who makes himself alive and active among his people.
Simeon discovers that is, through a free gift granted by the Holy Spirit, that in a special newborn baby the grace of the God who saves and who wants to meet Israel and all the nations, wants to shine. The “just and pious” man, that is, mature in faith, therefore capable of seeing beyond, of contemplating the invisible, of knowing with the heart, discovers that in the fragile and defenseless body of an infant hides the almighty God who lowers the proud and exalts the humble, who does not stop at appearances but reads inside and highlights feelings and intentions. The contemplative eye is followed by the prophetic word and Simeon announces to Mary the suffering that she will suffer as a mother due to the resistance, hostility and violence that will be unleashed against that son who has come to destroy darkness and death.
After the man of the Spirit, the woman of the Spirit enters the scene: Anna. Free from herself, attached to God alone, this woman pitched her tent in the house of God to dialogue with God in prayer and fasting, offer herself to him, and deliver edifying words to the people of God. Seeing the little one in the arms of his parents, Anna, like Simeon, senses the presence of God in him and proclaims him the redeemer, the one whom the Father has designated to marry his people, redeem them from their poverty and injustices, and make it a joyful mother, capable of giving birth to new men and women.