Candlemass Sermon
Today we celebrate the Presentation of Christ in the temple – also known as the feast of Candlemass.
Mary and Joseph presented Jesus at the Temple 40 days after His birth. It was old Simeon who met the Holy Family in the Temple.
When he took the baby Jesus in his arms He cried out :-
“Lord, now you let your servant go in peace,
your word has been fulfilled:
My own eyes have seen the salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of every people:
a light to reveal you to the nations
and the glory of your people Israel.”

In the temple He is presented publicly for the salvation of all –
He is declared to be a light for the whole world.

When Mary and Joseph entered the temple with their baby they must have looked like any other family bringing their baby to the temple.

But Mary and Joseph’s arrival at the temple was far from an ordinary everyday event – Simeon and also Anna the prophetess saw beyond the ordinary in this event – they saw beyond what anyone else could see.
Quite a few walk through life and never see beyond the ordinary – they never see the extraordinary – but in reality the extraordinary guides the ordinary day-by-day, moment-by-moment.
But how many see the truth of this.
How many see or perceive God in the world they dwell in.
How many praise God for the beauty around them.
Gerard Manley Hopkins the Jesuit poet when looking at a
bluebell could say in his journal in 1870 :-
“I do not think I have ever seen anything more beautiful than
the bluebell I have been looking at. I know the beauty of our Lord by it. “
And in another place he writes :-
“All things therefore are charged with love, are charged with God and if we know how to touch them give off sparks and take fire, yield drops and flow, ring and tell of him.”

One of the earliest flowers to appear in the year is the Snowdrop.
Snowdrops are known as “Candlemas Bells” because, being one of the earliest blooming flowers , they often bloom at the time of Candlemas . Legend says that they sprang up by the hand of an angel, who then pointed them out as a sign of hope to Eve, who was weeping in repentance and in despair over the cold and death that entered into the world after she and her husband succumbed to temptation.
Because our Hope is Christ, the Light of the World as Simeon announced, it is providential that the snowdrop should bloom by the Feast of Candlemass! The little snowdrop is far from ordinary – it is a sign of the extraordinary.

We are called as Christians to seek God in all things, because the One who is the Way is present as much in the ordinary activities of life as in the special moments.

Also the One who is Truth and Life is present in the wounded and the hurting as much as in the peaceful and beautiful, leading Pope Francis to describe the Church as a field hospital in the midst of a battle.

Today’s feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple brings apparently contradictory scenes together.
The Temple was the dwelling place of the Ark of the Covenant, the throne of the Lord’s invisible presence on earth.
Yet in the story of the presentation of Christ in the temple we see the visible entrance of the Lord, in the arms of his Mother Mary, who becomes his throne, the Ark of the New Covenant.

Jesus is now the visible presence of the invisible God. And wherever Jesus brought healing and forgiveness in all the places he visited and to all the people he met and touched, God was with Him.

The Lord’s presentation in the Temple signals the end of the Temple, because its purpose of being the unique dwelling place of the Holy One is now shared with every place to which Jesus goes and is also shared with every person who is touched by his healing-compassionate love.
Whenever or wherever an act of compassion is done in Jesus’s name or is carried out in the spirit of Jesus there Jesus is present – and God is present.

And before his death, he left us his abiding presence in the Eucharist, by which we receive his loving presence, and which we carry with us to every place we go and in every Christian action we take.
Gerard Manley Hopkins expresses this beautifully in condensed form in his poem entitled “As kingfishers catch fire” :-

“I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.”

Today, the Crucified and Risen Christ is present in over two billion places, wherever ‘justices’, wherever “graces”, of all who bear the name of Christ and the spirit of Christ.

The Temple is now in actual fact the whole world – where the light of Christ is spread abroad – the New Jerusalem descends from heaven to earth – lighted by the glory of God and the Lamb – “For He will dwell with them; they will be his people and God himself will be with them”
God truly abides with his people.
This means that as Christians we are not called to spend all our time in Church being “Holy” in a narrow sense of the word.

We are called out from the building of the Church, to carry the light of Christ to the Nations — into the world.
Holiness is about being attentive to and sharing the Lord’s presence, especially to the needy of the world in every moment of every day, so that we may be able to love and serve God in everything.
The refugee crisis is one great example in our time, where the light of Christ in us must shine. Of the 60 million displaced from their homes in recent years 8 million are children under 11 years of age. Compassionate Love in action and in practice, of course, does not come without a cost. Wherever true love and care exists, there is usually some cost. Raising a family in the normal circumstances of life is not without cost and sacrifice – parents know this only too well.
Remember that the more we give of ourselves in helping others, in helping the needy – the more blessed we will be.
And St Angela Merici of the 16th century invites us to :-
“Reflect that in reality we have a greater need to serve the poor than they have of our service.”
But may a true reflection on these profound words produce the service that the poor and the refugees need.

The love manifested and lived in Christ’s public ministry did not come without a cost – the cost in the end was the piercing nails hammered into his hands and feet on the cross. And the piercing was even deeper in the blessed heart of Mary his mother who witnessed her Son hanging on the cross for the life of the world.

As Christians seeking to honour Christ’s presence with us, may we in all that we do in the world always look for better ways to praise, love and serve the Lord and our neighbour.

However, we still need places of quiet — Cathedrals, and Churches, retreat centres and monasteries , to help us stop and become aware of the moments and places of God’s presence to us.

But having stopped in these places for a while, we will notice that we can find God present, and serve him as much in the ordinary crossroads of our daily life, as on a mountain top or in a beautiful Church or Cathedral.

May we give full and open space in our hearts and lives for Jesus to abide –
Jesus dwelt in Mary’s arms and heart in the temple.
May He dwell in the temple of our hearts giving us a new horizon, a new purpose and a new zeal, enabling us to proclaim with Simeon, and to personalise Simeon’s words as our own :-
“My own eyes have seen the salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of every people:
a light to reveal you to the nations
and the glory of your people Israel.”