Fr Frank writes:
My dear friends,
Of today’s Feast, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI writes:
….(today) we contemplate the Lord Jesus, whom Mary and Joseph bring to the Temple “to present him to the Lord”. Simeon identifies him as “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” and announces with prophetic words his supreme offering to God and his final victory. This is the meeting point of the two Testaments, Old and New. Jesus enters the ancient temple, he who is the new Temple of God: he comes to visit his people, thus bringing to fulfilment obedience to the Law and ushering in the last times of salvation.
It is interesting to take a close look at this entrance of the Child Jesus into the solemnity of the temple, in the great comings and goings of many people, busy with their work: priests and Levites taking turns to be on duty, the numerous devout people and pilgrims anxious to encounter the Holy God of Israel. Yet none of them notices anything. Jesus was a child like the others, a first-born son of very simple parents. Even the priests proved incapable of recognizing the signs of the new and special presence of the Messiah and Saviour. Alone two elderly people, Simeon and Anna, discover the great newness. Led by the Holy Spirit, in this Child they find the fulfilment of their long waiting and watchfulness. Their prophetic attitude contains the entire Old Covenant which expresses the joy of the encounter with the Redeemer.
On Monday this week we celebrate the martyr St Anne Line (who lived in Dunmow). It is also the feast of St Blaise. According to long tradition, throats will be blessed on this day with the words: “”Through the intercession of Saint Blaise, Bishop and Martyr, may God free you from disease of the throat and from every other evil, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
May God bless you and keep you safe.
Frank ofs
Sunday Smile:
An elderly Irishman who was dying was visited by his priest.
“Will you renounce the devil and all his works?” asked the priest. There was no answer.
The priest shouted, “Murphy, will you renounce the devil and all his works?”
The old man opened one eye and said, “You needn’t shout Father, I heard you the first time, but this is no time to be making enemies.”