Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today's Mass Readings

Today is the memorial feast day of the presentation of the Virgin Mary in the temple, a feast that dates at least to the sixth century. According to tradition, Mary was brought to the temple by her parents Anna and Joachim at the age of three. Some suggest that Mary likely learned to read scripture through her association with the temple, and as a result, she knew a lot about the prophecies of a Messiah that would come for the people of Israel. This makes Mary’s later “Yes” to God at the time when she conceived Jesus all the more significant, because she is even more aware than most of what it means that the Messiah is to be born. The memorial feast we observe today dovetails with the reality that the Feast of Christ the King will be here on Sunday, and that the season of Advent will follow in only another week’s time. Today, we celebrate Mary, who gives birth to Christ at his first coming to earth. But at the same time, the daily readings have been focused on Jesus’ Second Coming, and on what it means that Jesus is our King in preparation for the upcoming feast.

The words from today’s first reading (Revelation 10:8-11) are a bit of a puzzle: how is it that God’s words can taste sweet but yet make John’s stomach sour? It is perplexing, too, to turn from that reading to the Psalm (119), which proclaims that God’s promises are sweet to the taste! Surely, if God’s promises and God’s words are sweet, won’t the effect be sweet as well?

Deeper reflection on food, though, reminds me that it does not always feel good even if initially it tastes good. Ice cream, eaten in too great a quantity, makes me feel quite ill. Or, when I am trying to lose weight, I might eat a piece of chocolate cake but then later regret it – it makes me feel sluggish, and regretful that I hadn’t stuck to more healthful eating habits. Some people enjoy foods like shrimp or tomatoes, but discover they have severe allergic reactions to eating those foods.

So, good tasting food doesn’t necessarily lead to good results. In John’s revelation, the “sour stomach” feeling comes from the results of the words of God that John has eaten. It is a reminder to John and to all of us Christians that just because we see Jesus Christ as our savior and our healer, it doesn’t mean that salvation is a peaceful, loving, and joyous event.

In fact, looking at today’s Gospel (Luke 19:45-48), we see that salvation is sometimes hard and difficult and sometimes even leads to death. In the Gospel, Jesus is teaching in Jerusalem a few days before his death. One day he comes to the temple and sees that there are people who are buying and selling things that are necessary for worshipping God at the temple (the animals for temple sacrifice, candles, etc), and essentially making money off of God.

It would be a bit like our coming to mass and discovering that if we wanted to attend, we would have to pay a small sum just to walk through the door, then another small sum to sit in a pew, then another sum to get a hymnal to be able to sing along with the congregation. Jesus sees that the people at the temple are in need of salvation: rather than living like “thieves” stealing from God’s house, they need to recognize that God’s “house will be a house of prayer.”

Restoration of the house of prayer should seem to us as good: a place for people to encounter God without having to pay for it. Yet it is this action, among many, that causes the chief priests and others to seek Jesus’ death. Following God’s words, though they are salvation to us and though they taste sweet, may also lead to difficult trials, persecution and death.

What kind of king do we have? We have one who saves and one who loves us, though not in the way the world saves and loves. Our savior does not see that money-making, for instance, is truly salvation.

Jesus loves us at great cost to himself. Mary, too, loves God and us to the extent that she is able and willing to say “Yes” to God despite the personal costs that she knew would likely result. So today, let us take the time to reflect on the ways that the “sweet words” of God might still be leading us to give difficult, but faithful, witness to Christ in our own lives. And let us ask God for courage to live a life that is truly full of discipleship, despite the cost. - Jana Bennett