Liturgical Notes on the Presentation 2020

This year the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord falls on Sunday, February 2nd. The Office of Worship of the Diocese of Worcester has, therefore, prepared the following notes in order to answer some of the questions surrounding the rather rare occurrence of this feast on a Sunday. I hope you find it helpful!

ON THE PRESENTATION OF THE LORD

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2019

This year the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord falls on Sunday, February 2nd. Some have inquired, therefore, concerning the appropriateness of blessing candles during Sunday Masses. 

There are two forms for the Blessing of Candles in the Roman Missal, not unlike the Blessing of Palms on Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord. 

THE FIRST FORM

As on Palm Sunday, the first form includes a Procession from “a smaller church or other suitable place other than inside the church to which the procession will go,” where all are gathered with unlighted candles.

When the Priest (wearing a chasuble or cope) arrives with the ministers, the candles are lit as an appropriate chant is sung. He then makes the sign of the Cross, and greets them in the usual way and addresses them with the address provided or using similar words. The address recalls the origin of the feast, in commemoration of the fortieth day since the Nativity of the Lord, when Mary and Joseph presented him in the temple in fulfillment of the Law, how “in reality [Christ] was coming to meet his believing people.” The priest then recalls the story of Simeon and Anna and invites all present to be led by the Holy Spirit into the house of the Lord to encounter the Christ “in the breaking of the bread, until he comes again, revealed in glory.”

Then the Priest blesses the candles with his hands extended, using an ancient prayer recalling how God, “the source and origin of all light” became for Simeon the “Light for revelation to the Gentiles.” The prayer goes on to ask God to bless the candles “which we are eager to carry in praise of your name,
so that, treading the path of virtue, we may reach that light which never fails.” A shorter alternate prayer of blessing of modern composition is also provided. 

He then sprinkles the candles with holy water and imposes incense for the procession. Taking a candle himself, the Priest (if there is no deacon) announces: “Let us go in peace to meet the Lord.” as an appropriate chant is sung. 

As the procession enters the Church, the Entrance Antiphon may be sung. He reverences the Altar in the customary fashion, incenses it, if it is the custom, and then goes to the chair and exchanges the cope (if worn) for the chasuble, as the Mass continues with the Gloria.

THE SECOND FORM

The second form (The Solemn Entrance) is simpler, and might be employed at other Masses. It begins in “a suitable place” either outside the front door or inside the Church, as either the whole assembly or a representative group hold unlighted candles. The Priest (wearing the chasuble) and ministers go to meet them. At the Cathedral we are gathering at the cross aisle. When the ministers arrive, the candles are lit, as an appropriate song is sung. There he greets the people and blesses the candles, as above, and the procession to the altar takes place with appropriate singing.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 

Is the blessing of candles on Sunday required? 

No. The Blessing of Candles is an optional rite. It may be appropriate to do one of the forms at one Mass or all Masses, but this depends entirely on pastoral circumstances.

Should candles be given to all the people present and blessed? 

Candles may be given to everyone or to a representative group of the faithful, who would take part in the procession.  Any kind of candles may be used, even the small assembly candles used at the Easter Vigil. Cost will be a factor.

If everyone receives candles, what do they do with them afterward?

Families might be encouraged to take the candle home and put it in the same location which the Christmas crib occupied or even on the dining room table. A simple prayer like “Christ, light of the world, bless our family” might be incorporated into their blessing before meals for as long as the candle lasts.

Our parish usually blesses throats on the Sunday closest to the feast of Saint Blaise. Can we bless both candles and throats at this Mass?

If the blessing of throats on a Sunday has been the custom, preference should be given to the blessing of candles on the feast of the Presentation and throats might be blessed on the following Sunday. 

What is the origin of the Feast of the Presentation?

Jesus’ presentation in the Temple, as described in Luke 2:22–39, was in fulfillment of the Mosaic law, whereby the mother of a male child concluded her period of purification forty days after his birth, just as the Blessed Virgin Mary commemorates her ritual purification by presenting Jesus in the Temple. The Feast of the Presentation of the the Lord dates to at least the fourth century in Jerusalem where the pilgrim Egeria describes a procession on “the fortieth day” after the feast of the Nativity of the Lord in Jerusalem. Two hundred years later, in the midst of a terrible plague, great processions with candles were ordered on this day in every town asking for the deliverance from evil and the plague abated. From that time, the feast also came to be known as the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, Candlemas, the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin and The Meeting of the Lord.

What should the homily be about?

The themes for the homily might center around encountering Christ, recalling the story of Simeon and Anna, or the coming of Christ our light into a world darkened by sin. Among those homilies which might be reviewed are a 1997 homily by Pope Saint John Paul II and a 2011 homily by Pope Benedict XVI.

On Seeing Christ...

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.  We, who walked in darkness have seen a great light.  And that light is the face of Christ.

Do you remember the first time you saw him?  I mean really saw him.  Do you remember the first time you saw the Lord Jesus with the eyes of faith?

Maybe it was when you were a little kid, and your grandmother told you that Jesus, through whom you were made, was in that little white host and that fancy gold cup that the Priest was holding on the Altar.  And with the faith of a little child, you looked up and saw him.

Caryll Houselander once described that moment so well in her book Mass for the People, written way back in 1942.  She wrote:

“Slowly, exactly, Father O'Grady repeated the words of Consecration, his hands moved in Christ's hands, his voice spoke in Christ's voice, his words were Christ's words, his heart beat in Christ's heart.

“Fr. O'Grady lifted up the consecrated Host in his short, chapped hands, the server rang a little bell, the sailor, the handful of old women and the very old man bowed down whispering "My Lord and my God" and the breath of their adoration was warm on their cold fingers.

Father O'Grady was lifting up God.”

As with the eyes of faith, every innocent child and old faithful woman and man looked at that white host and gold Chalice and saw God, Jesus, their Lord and their God!

Maybe that was the first time you saw God. 

Or maybe the first time you were with the old sick lady or that guy who lived on the street or that person who really needed you.  And you consoled them and wiped their sweaty brown, or fed them as they gobbled it down hungrily, or dried their tears as they cried about how hard their life had become. And maybe when you looked behind their tears or between the wrinkles of their wizened visage you saw Jesus, smiling back at you. 

Maybe that’s the first time you saw his face.

Or maybe it was after that time you had really messed up, and your life was in a shambles, and you had cried through endless nights of dark despair. Until, in a dazzling moment of blinding light, someone forgave you, God absolved you and you were overwhelmed, drowning in a gratuitous mercy that you never could have deserved. And way down deep in your broken heart, now overcome with healing love, you saw his face, maybe for the first, but certainly not for the last time.

 And suddenly, you were like Isaiah, so aware of your littleness set against the infinity of God’s glory. Your grubbiness, set against the the purity of seraphims praising the holiness of God.  And, like Isaiah, you cried out:  "Woe is me, for I am doomed!…a man of unclean lips…”

We hear today of the first time Andrew and Peter saw Jesus.  He was walking by the sea of Galilee, when he caught sight of the two brothers casting a fishing net into the sea. “Come after me,” he yelled to them, “and I will make you fishers of men.” “At once they left their nets and followed him.”

That first calling of the disciples reminds us that Jesus always sees us before we catch sight of him, for is through him that we were made and through him that we were knot together in our mothers’ wombs.  

Imagine that, if you will…how before your parents or grandparents were even born, God knew you…by name.  He knew the beauty of you, the talents of you, the accomplishments you would enjoy.  He knew the sins you would commit, the darkness you would cling to and the evil to which you would surrender yourself.  He knew you better than you will ever know yourself, and still he loved you.

He knew you and still he became a weak little baby for love of you.  He knew you and still he suffered the passion of the cross for you.  He knew you and still be gave his life, his last breath and drop of blood for love of you.  Before you had learned to say his name, he knew you and he loved you still.

Which is why it is an old and pious tradition to meditate on the last time you will see him in this life, with prayers for a happy death.  What will it be like the last time you will see him in this life?  Perhaps it will be in that little white host as viaticum, the Bread of Angels received for one last time.  Or perhaps it will be in the eyes of that person whom you had never forgiven to whom you will show mercy with your dying breath.  Or perhaps it will be in the absolution which will still your dying heart, the peace you will know when you make your last confession.

What will it be like, the last time I see him in this life?

I do not know.  But I do know that no matter when it was that I first caught a glimpse of his face, no matter how it will be that I will catch a last glimpse of him, I know that when I walk through that door from this life to the next, I will be ‘welcomed  into the light of his face.’  The face of him through whom all things were made, the Alpha and the Omega who died for me, who sought me out whenever I was lost and with whom I long to live in the glory of his perfect love for all eternity.

The Order for the Baptism of Children Workshop

Here is the workshop which I recently gave to Clergy of the Diocese of Worcester on the new Order for the Baptism of Children. Feel free to share!

MLK in Worcester

It was almost sixty years ago that Doctor Martin Luther King visited Temple Emmanuel in Worcester: March 13th, 1961. 

That was before the march on Washington, before the Voting Right bills and before the assassinations that marked the end of the long hard struggle against racism, discrimination and injustice. Dr. King, pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Atlanta, awakened the consciences of ministers, priests, rabbis and believers everywhere and began the march from hate to brotherhood that continues even to our day. 

There were two secrets to Dr. King’s success.  The first was his faith. While some biographers would point to certain character flaws or even sinful behavior, no one can deny that Martin Luther King was a man of faith.  

Before his belief in civil rights or the formulation of any such movement, Dr. King was a preacher and one who based everything he believed and did on the person of Jesus.  In a Sermon given in 1953, as a 24 year old doctoral student in Theology at Boston Univeristy, Dr. King preached this sermon:

Christianity has no meaning devoid of Christ. The noble principles of Christianity remain abstract until they are personified in a person called Christ. Christ is the center around which everything in the Christian faith revolves.

This is what the book of revelation means when it says He King of Kings and Lord of Lord. He is the center not only of our faith, but of history and all nations must bow before him. This is the ringing affirmation of Christmas—that a personality has come in the world to split history into A.D. and B.C. The thing that Christ brought into the world was not a new set of doctrines, not new teachings, but his person, in whom all truth is to be found.

So, the first thing that made Dr. King able to accomplish the great things he did was his faith, for, as the Psalmist says in today’s Mass: ‘It is to the upright that I will show the saving power of God.’

And his second great quality was his commitment to non0violence.  For he accomplished the great things he did not with money or accumulated political power, but with an understanding of the message we just learned again at Christmas: that it is only in littleness, in dying to self and in loving like a baby in a manger or a man on a cross that we can accomplish great things. 

For when they cursed and beat Dr. King and the courageous men and women he led, he would respond not with more hate, but with patient love. “Do to us what you will...” he proclaimed that day in Worcester, “and we will still love you. We will not hate you...We will wear you down by our capacity to suffer; we will win our freedom and we will win you too. It will be a double victory.” 

Dr. King learned that lesson from the Christ in the manger and the Christ on the Cross, and, that, in the words of the Collect I prayed just a few moment ago, God, who governs all things, might mercifully hear the pleading of his people and bestow his peace on our times.

Anointing David...and us

So God Samuel to anoint the new King, today, to be chosen from among the sons of Jesse.

At first he was sure God would choose Eliab, the oldest and tallest and best looking of all of Jesse’s son. So Samuel asked the Lord, is it him? No, said the Lord. Keep looking.

So he considered the next oldest, Abinadab.  But the Lord told him to keep looking. And then Shimea, Nethanel, Raddai and Ozem. But each time the Lord told Samuel to keep looking.  Finally, in desperation, Samuel turned to Jesse and asked, “Are these all the sons you have?”

And Jesse replied, reluctantly, there’s one more, the youngest. He’s out looking after the sheep.  So he sent for him, and when God saw this littlest of the sons of Jesse, he told Samuel that this was his chosen one…anoint him and make him the King of Israel.

God chose David in his littleness, just like he chose the Virgin Mary in her littleness and, in the same way, each one of us.  He chose us not because we were big and strong, or good looking or bright, not because we were so faithful or articulate or strong or powerful….Saint Theresa of Lisieux understood this well, when she wrote to Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart: ‘let us remain far from all that sparkles, let us love our littleness…then we shall be poor in spirit, and Jesus will come to look for us, and he will transform us in flames of his love.’

On the Baptism of the Lord...

The first time he appeared was in his mother’s arms.  And just as with his saving resurrection, the first witnesses to his birth were the women: the mother and the mid-wife, according to some traditions.  At that wondrous moment the mother might have recalled the words of the angel: You will…give birth to a son…the Son of the Most High…and his kingdom will never end.

The second appearing was to his father, and then the shepherds and finally, the magi from the East.  Lots of folks would have seen him after that, as far away as Egypt, and then back home in Nazareth.  Until that day when he approached his eccentric cousin…Elizabeth’s son, who lived in the desert and dressed in a camel’s skin and started baptizing people, telling them to make straight a way for the coming Messiah.

Until that day, which we commemorated in this morning’s Mass in an unusual way, with the Blessing and Sprinkling of Holy Water, intended to remind us of our Baptism.  This is especially appropriate as we celebrate the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, and recall how John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan River, inaugurating his public ministry.

But what is this Baptism, this washing with water which we reflect upon today?  

As the ancient prayer I prayed to bless the water a few minutes ago reminds us, God created water to be a source of life and purification, both inside and out.  washing dirt away on the outside, and baptismally washing sin away on the inside, giving rise to a life-giving spring of eternal life, bubbling up from deep within.

But why was Jesus Baptized? Was he in need of cleansing? Not at all. He was a man like us in all things except sin.  No sin was within him.

But so much did he love us, that he not only became one of us, but he stood there among the sinners waiting to have their sins washed away, in order to encourage us to return to God with our whole heart, and to be totally immersed in his love.

Indeed, the Greek word baptisma literally means immersion, as when John baptizes Jesus by immersing him in the waters of the Jordan River, and as Jesus entirely immerses himself in our human condition so that he could understand our weaknesses and our frailty.

But then what happened at the moment of Jesus’ Baptism, the moment when his public ministry of meekness and humility began in a life of sacrificial love? 

You heard what Saint Luke told us. The clouds parted and the Holy Spirit showed himself in the form of a dove, while the voice of the Father acknowledged his beloved Son.  

Here stands Jesus, acclaimed by his Father as the hope of the prophets, the light for the nations, sight to the blind, freedom to prisoners and the way out of all the dark dungeons of selfishness and sin.

Here stands Jesus, who with his strong right arm outstretched upon the Cross,  conquers the Evil One by suffering and by laying down his life for his sheep.

Here stands Jesus, come to “baptize humanity in the Holy Spirit…to give humanity God's life and his Spirit of love…” (Pope Benedict XVI, 13 Jan 2008.)

It is that same Jesus who we receive in the Sacraments of water and blood which first flowed from his side as he hung upon the Altar of the Cross. The Sacrmaents of Baptism, by which our sins are washed away, and Eucharist, at which we drink his Precious Blood, the promise of eternal life.

So let our prayer this morning be the one which I prayed a few moments ago, at the end of the sprinkling with holy water on this Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, that “Almighty God [might] cleanse us of our sins, and through the celebration of this Eucharist, make us worthy to share at the table of his Kingdom.”