Candelmas 2012

Candlemas 2012 “When the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.” (Luke 1:22-35)
Delayed obedience is disobedience. Disobedience is death.

The Law of God revealed through Moses is the Law of Life. The Law reflects the pattern, plan and purpose of Creation and our place in Creation. Mary understood this.

Mary understood this because Mary’s mind was saturated in the scriptures of the Old Testament. Mary knew this because her heart was aflame with love for God. Mary knew this because her soul was full of grace.

The grace opens the personality to the love. The love invites the person to make a real choice.

When we hear the law of commandments, do this and do not do that, we have a tendency to resist, rewrite or rebel. God never intended the Law to solve the fundamental problem that confronts our species. God always intended the law to act as a perfect mirror to our souls.

The Law shows us the standard of holiness God designed into the Creation. The Law convicts our conscience of separation from that standard. Then, the Law prepares us to receive God’s solution to the problem. The solution is not more Law or less Law. The solution is a person, Jesus Christ.

The law is always personal. It always asks us to make a choice. We choose our priorities in the light of the law. We choose our actions and our inaction in response to or in our reaction against the Law.

Where so many people in the long history of the Old Testament had said no to God’s Law, Mary said yes. Her yes emerges from the place of grace. Her yes proceeds from the well spring of love she cultivated in her soul.

Mary chose to travel to Jerusalem to offer the appointed sacrifice at the appointed place at the appointed time. The appointed sacrifice was two pigeons. The appointed place was the altar in the Temple at Jerusalem. The appointed time was forty days from the birth.

Mary did not argue with the particularities of the Law. She did not say: why 40 days? Why not 39 or 41? Why do I have to adjust my schedule to come ancient commandment? Why does it have to be two pigeons? Why not one or three? Why pigeons? And, why does it have to be at the Temple in Jerusalem? There are more convenient places than Jerusalem.

The pattern of obedience is faith. By faith Mary joyfully accepted the Law of her Purification and her son’s Presentation as an invitation to worship. The prayer of faith is: Heavenly Father, not my will but Thy will be done.”

Faith surrenders self-will to Divine will and discovers free will. Faith sets us free from fear to rejoice in the Real Presence of the Divine. The way of faith is the way of life. The way of life is the steadfast holy unconditional and sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. We can only immerse ourselves in that divine love at the altar of sacrifice at the divinely appointed time.

The pattern of disobedience is pride. Pride says: ”I know better and I know best therefore my will be done.” Pride rejects Divine Will to assert self-will and discovers slavery to fear. Pride separates us from God, other people and the essence of our true selves. The way of pride is the way of separation. The way of separation is death.

Mary’s obedience to the Law of Moses did not merit her grace. Mary’s obedience proceeds from grace. God’s grace is the universal outpouring of his own divine nature to all people everywhere. It is that divine nature of unconditional love that brings forth both grace and Law to all people and for all people.

The Law reminds us of our separation from God. Grace interacts with Law to invite us to make a real choice to follow the way of faith. The faith releases the love that creates us, sustains us and transforms us.

The delight is in the details. It is in the particularity of the Law that we discover God present to us and for us in the details of our daily life. That is why St. Paul writes that the very unique aspects of nature reveal the reality of God for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

We no longer have the ritual Laws of Moses to guide us in the way of faith. The Temple no longer exists. The time of sacrifice was fulfilled on the cross. The principle behind the Law and undergirding the Law is eternal. The principle is steadfast holy unconditional sacrificial love made flesh in Jesus Christ.

The invitation to grace is the call to worship. For Mary and Joseph it was the Old Covenant Law of sacrifice and Temple worship: 40 days, at the altar of sacrifice in the Temple at Jerusalem with two pigeons offered to God by a Levitical priest.
For us, it is the New Testament reality of the Incarnation. It is the Real Presence of the Divine on the seventh day at the altar of sacrifice in the offering of the holy Mystery of the Mass. It is a choice.

Moses calls to us across the millennia and says: Choose wisely. Choose life.
Mary calls to us and indeed prays for us from her place in the Church Triumphant and says: Choose Jesus.