Spirituality of the Readings

Blood & Flesh

The Feast of the Presentation this year takes place on February 2nd each year, a date which falls on this coming Sunday.*

Alright, what is a “Presentation” in the Church year?

In Jesus’ day to formally “present” a child involved the purification of the mother, who was presumably defiled by giving birth. We can talk about that another time. Notice: strangely, in order to have a purification, there had to be a “sacrifice.” The Book of Leviticus says this involved the killing of a year-old lamb, or another animal. Poor people such as Joseph and Mary could not afford a first-born lamb, so they were allowed to sacrifice just a pigeon or a turtledove.**

Good so far? Presentation involved a sacrifice, and so we must ask why a “sacrifice” involved killing.

The word sacrifice had many meanings in the times before Jesus’ birth. Here is an attempt to understand this somewhat difficult topic.

For much of history, the realm of the gods was considered something far distant from the daily world of earth. In the earthly realm there is suffering, death, sin, warfare, uncleanness. In the godly land there is none of this, or at least not much. So, could there possibly be a way to disconnect something from this world and send it somehow as a peace offering into heaven? The gift would have to be of high value, of course, so it should be the “first fruit,” or the first-born, etc, which would mean it was “pure.”

How was it sent to the heavenly realm? By putting it to death. Why? Death would release its binding to our world and send it into the heavens. “Priests” were set aside from ordinary life to preside over such a sacrifice, since they were separated, disconnected from our sullied world and therefore could serve as intermediaries in the transfer of a gift to heaven.

This notion of sacrifice developed through the ages, and it came to be applied, in its way, to Jesus and to Christianity. Here is a sketch of that outcome.

God’s self, his Word, came among us as a tiny human babe, the firstborn child of the Divine. If this firstborn were to grow up and become a sacrifice, then never again would anyone think that the doors to God were closed and locked, at least if they understood through faith who Jesus was. He, the Word of God, would participate in everything earthly—except sin, of course. St. Paul says in the Second Reading that “since the children share in blood and flesh, Jesus likewise shared in these things.” His crucifixion could then be seen as the death prescribed in sacrifice.

In the temple, Simeon, rejoicing, spoke the following beautiful scene, quoted in Sunday’s Gospel:

My eyes have seen your salvation,
which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples:
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and glory for your people Israel.

A sacrifice.

And Simeon hints at a further sacrifice to come. “This child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel,” he says, “and to be a sign that will be contradicted—and, [speaking to Mary,] you yourself a sword will pierce.”

Quite a piercing this would be. Sacrifice includes suffering and it includes death. But in the very act of dying Jesus would show that Godliness, in its essence, survives death because divine love outlives death.

Our world today is crowded with grief and torment, starvation, warfare, killing, and “lives of quiet desperation.” But in Jesus, God came to participate in all of it.

He took the whole bundle into his two arms and he embraced it. He made it good. On Sunday we are in place to celebrate this ultimate purification.

John Foley, SJ

**From Saint Louis University