Posted on 05/10/2022 8:51:22 AM PDT by Carpe Cerevisi
At Christmas time, the Virgin Mary gets a bit of attention in the wider culture. A woman gives birth in difficult circumstances: Mother, baby, ox and ass, the manger. It’s a very touching scene. She quickly fades from the scene however, with some five centuries of culture desperately afraid that she will get too much attention.
In that vein, she is pretty much absent from Easter. We have eggs, chocolate, bunny rabbits, and the resurrection of Christ (along with new dresses and such), but Mary has no place in our culture’s Easter imagination. Some of this is undoubtedly the result of 500 years of a dominantly anti-Catholic Protestantism. You have to mention Mary at Christmas, but she can conveniently be forgotten at Easter.
Unless you’re Orthodox.
In Orthodoxy, there is essentially no teaching regarding Christ that ignores His mother. There is no teaching regarding Jesus that ignores His humanity and His humanity requires that we remember her. When the Council of 431 (3rd Ecumenical) declared Mary to be “Theotokos” (“Birthgiver of God”) it was on account of its concern that the full truth of who Christ is not be distorted. The mystery of the Incarnation (rightly understood) makes it possible to speak the paradoxical title of “Birthgiver of God” (not just “Birthgiver of Christ”). Christ is fully God and fully man. The one born of Mary was God and man. God was born of her.
This is echoed as well in the prophetic word that was spoken to Mary when she brought Jesus to the Temple 40 days after His birth (in concordance with the Law). Simeon the prophet, holding the child in his arms, said to His mother:
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.ancientfaith.com ...
I’ve never read his work before, but enjoyed this. Thanks for posting and introducing me to him.
“...when she brought Jesus to the Temple 40 days after His birth (in concordance with the Law)...”
Common misconception.
From:
The Purification of Mary & The Presentation of Jesus
If you’re a woman, and if you’ve given birth, you know the weeks following the delivery of your baby are a time when your body is shedding what is no longer needed once the baby has arrived. In ancient times, body fluids such as those present during pregnancy were thought to make a new mother “ritually unclean.” Before engaging in any religious ritual, a Jewish woman was expected to undergo purification.
There are many forms of purification that generally include water or washing. Perhaps the most familiar is what we witness prior to every liturgical celebration as the priest washes his hands at the altar. And, of course, there is baptism.
The Feast of the Purification of Mary is based on Mosaic law that required postpartum women to wait to enter a church, and in most cases to stay at home, for 40 days after giving birth to a male child. In Mary’s case the 40th day after the birth of Jesus (Dec. 25) is Feb. 2. While this rule didn’t apply to her because the law referred to an unclean woman as one who had conceived by receiving the seed of man – and Mary did not, as she was with child by the grace of the Holy Spirit – Mary complied.
Note: This purification and presentation celebration is also called Candlemas. On this day, people would bring their candles to church to be blessed. The light of the candles represents Jesus, who is the light.
LUKE 2:22 “And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord…”
(bibleversestudy.com)
On this momentous day, the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the Purification of Mary, Jesus entered a church for the first time in his very young life. (Catholicism.org)
More explanation.
Not the biggest fan of Jimmy Akin, but he does know a thing or two.
From:
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/what-s-happening-at-the-presentation-of-the-lord
What’s Happening at the Presentation of the Lord?
Forty days after his birth, Christ was presented at the Temple. Why?
Jimmy Akin
February 2, 2020
Feb. 2 is the Feast of the the Presentation of the Lord.
We read about the presentation of the Lord in Luke 2, but the text can be a little mysterious.
What is actually happening there?
Some claim that Luke himself didn’t know...
What Luke Says
Here is what Luke actually says about the event:
[22] And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord [23] (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) [24] and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.”
He then records the encounters with Simeon and Anna the prophetess, but at the moment our focus is what Luke refers to as “their purification.”
What is he talking about?
The Purification of the Mother
The first thing to note is that Luke is not talking about the time of Jesus’ circumcision. That occurred on the eighth day after his birth. Luke has already talked about that and is now referring to a later time.
Specifically, he’s talking about the 40th day after Christ’s birth.
We know that because of he quotes from Leviticus 12:8 (”a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons”), which refers to the purification ritual that a Jewish mother needed to perform to become ritually clean again after childbirth.
In the case of a boy, this was on the 40th day after childbirth (which is why this feast is on Feb. 2 — 40 days after Christmas, counting Dec. 25 as the first day).
In the case of a girl child, the purification was later.
This leads to a question...
Why “Their” Purification?
Leviticus only mentions the purification of the mother, not anybody else. So why does Luke refer to the time of “their” purification?
Some have thought Luke was fuzzy on how all this was supposed to work.
That seems unlikely to me. Luke may have been a Gentile Christian, but he was living amidst numerous Jewish Christians, and in keeping with his habit of investigating things thoroughly, he would have been able to find out precisely how these things worked.
I think another explanation is more likely, and there are several possible ones.
One is that Luke is just speaking in a general way. The rite of purification was something that the whole family was present for. They all made the journey to the temple together, and so it was in some sense “their” effort, even if it was Mary in particular who was being ritually purified.
If a modern family goes to a restaurant to celebrate the birthday of one of it’s members, it is in one sense “their” party, even if in another sense it is the party of the one having the birthday.
In the same way, if the whole family goes to the temple for a purification, Luke can speak of it as “their” purification, even if they aren’t all being purified.
A Poor But Obedient Family
There are a couple more things to note about Mary’s purification.
The first is that the offering she made indicates that the Holy Family was poor. The ordinary offering was a lamb and a dove, but in cases where a family was too poor for that, two doves were used instead.
Despite its noble lineage, belonging to the line of David, Joseph’s family had fallen on hard times and was among the poor.
They were still obedient to what the Law of Moses required, though. This is the reason why Mary offers the second dove as “a sin offering” (see Leviticus 12:6), though she herself was immaculate.
This act does not indicate that she was a sinner any more than Jesus’ circumcision, baptism, or participation in other sacrificial rites indicates that he was a sinner.
And there is more happening here...
The Redemption of the Firstborn
Luke also quotes Exodus 13:2, which deals with the redemption of firstborn males.
The idea behind this ritual was that every male firstborn — whether human or animal — is holy to God, the same way that the firstfruits of a crop were holy to God.
Consequently, they had to either be given to God in sacrifice or redeemed — bought back from him.
Since human sacrifice was illegal and immoral, all firstborn boys had to be redeemed, which was done by their father paying a priest five shekels.
Luke Confused Again?
Again, people accuse Luke of being confused about this. It is argued that the redemption of the firstborn didn’t take place at the temple, and so there was no reason for the Holy Family to bring Jesus there.
Again, the criticism is misplaced.
While it may have been possible for a boy to be redeemed anywhere, it was natural for this to be done at the temple, and we know — in fact — that there was a tradition of doing so.
We read about that in Nehemiah 10:35-36, where the people took an oath, saying:
We obligate ourselves ... to bring to the house of our God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God, the firstborn of our sons and of our cattle, as it is written in the law.
No Mention of Redemption?
Interestingly, Luke does not mention Joseph paying the five shekels to a priest. Why not?
It could be that he simply takes this act for granted, just as he doesn’t go into the details of the rite of Mary’s purification. He has cited the Old Testament passages referring to these rites, and he takes that as sufficient indication they were performed.
But some have thought there may be a deeper significance to his failing to mention Jesus being redeemed.
Why might that be?
Still Consecrated
The obvious answer would be that Jesus was considered as still consecrated to the Lord.
Two reasons suggest themselves. First, as the Jewish Encyclopedia notes:
Not only priests and Levites, but also Israelites whose wives are the daughters of priests or Levites, need not redeem their firstborn.
Joseph was the husband of Mary, and Mary was a relative of Elizabeth, who was “of the daughters of Aaron” (Luke 1:5), so perhaps Mary’s lineage didn’t require her to have her Son redeemed.
In that case, he was presented at the Temple in acknowledgement of his consecration to God.
Or, if the redemption was done, Luke may meant to suggest, on a literary level, that Jesus remained totally consecrated to God.
Benedict XVI comments:
“Evidently Luke intends to say that instead of being ‘redeemed’ and restored to his parents, this child was personally handed over to God in the Temple, given over completely to God. ... Luke has nothing to say regarding the act of ‘redemption’ prescribed by the law. In its place we find the exact opposite: the child is handed over to God, and from now on belongs to him completely.” (Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives: 3)
Christ is Risen!
Christos Anesti!
Christos Voskrese!
a l - Mas ih qam !
To this day male Orthodox Christian infants are carried around the Altar by the Priest at the 40 day “churching” rite.
Later, at Baptism, a lock of hair will be cut and burned in the oil lamp on that same Altar as a first offering.
Beautiful. I forwarded the link to a songbird I know. Were she to take a crack at it, I think she could handle it.
Awesome.
Nice! I always thought Jesus would have been consecrated at the earliest possible time, and that, had the Holy Family not had to flee, he would have been raised in the Temple. Instead, by God’s holy will, Jesus was raised by the two holiest people.
You’re very welcome!
Thanks for posting this. I learn something new every day!
February 2 is indeed the day of the candles being blessed, and they are used the very next day for the blessing of throats on St. Blaise Day, February 3rd.
Thanks MG.
Rather, Bible Christians actually read the Scriptures in which blessed Mary is importantly mentioned, while if Mary magnifiers ("above that which is written" - 1 Co. 4:6) just want to appeal to Scripture then it is the Spirit of Christ that they implicitly must complain for "ignoring" Mary therein.
Matthew, Mark and Luke make no mention of Mary the mother of Jesus at His crucifixion yet naming some women (Matthew 27:55-56; Mark 15:40) - an omission no faithful Catholic (inclusive of Orthodox) would allow - leaving only John 19:25-27, while none mention His mother at His resurrection.
And all focus on Mary Magdalene, (Matthew 28:1-8; Mark 16:1; Luke 24:10; John 20:1,2) a sinner saved by grace. What an evangelical things to do
RC Ratzinger said, that Mary “in the gospel tradition is quite marginal” !(“God and the world;” p. 296) and after that we do not hear of Mary the mother of Jesus except the simple mention of her in Acts 1 as one of the about 120 disciples, being utterly absent in all the rest of the NT (despite Catholic attempts to read her into Rv. 12, which even RC scholars deny). And Scripture is the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed (including how they understood the OT and gospels).
Thus to be consistent with the Catholic complaint of ignoring Mary then it would extend to the Holy Spirit as regards Scripture, which of course is blasphemous, and thus, despite the appeal to Scripture (often by Catholic apologists in condescension to Bible Christians - with the goal of bring them to renounce their position on its supreme authority -) in reality for Catholics Scripture is not their sure supreme standard. Nor even Tradition to which they appeal to for the many distinctive Catholic teachings that are not manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed (which is Scripture, in particular Acts through Revelation, which best shows how the NT church understood the gospels). Instead it is their respective magisterium which tells them what is of God, under the premise of ensured perpetual veracity, which is not of Scripture either.
The word translated "their" in the Byzantine/Majority Text is αὐτὰ and which occurs 5,779 times in 3,780 verses in the TR and the KJV translates Strong's G846 in the following manner: him (1,952x), his (1,084x), their (318x), he (252x), her (242x), they (121x), same (80x), himself (58x), miscellaneous (1,678x).
The only problem is the fact that Mary did NOT give birth to 'god'.
'GOD' already existed. She merely supplied some flesh for Him to wear for a while.
Really?
Matthew 11:11
“Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist:
notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
Luke 7:28
I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John,
yet even the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
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