Spirituality of the Readings

Blood & Flesh

The last time the Feast of the Presentation took place on a Sunday was in 2014.

To present a firstborn child in Jesus’ days meant the purification of the mother, which in turn demanded a sacrifice. The Book of Leviticus gives the prescription for purification: 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.

Sacrifice includes suffering and it includes death.

Alright, then, what is a “sacrifice”? 

The word had many meanings in the times before Jesus’ birth. On the Feast of the Presentation, here is an attempt to understand this somewhat difficult topic.

For much of history, the realm of the gods was considered something far off from the daily world of earth. In our world there was suffering, death, sin, warfare, uncleanness. In the godly realm there was none of this, or at least not much. So, might there be a way to disconnect something from here 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 lamb, etc., which would mean it was “pure.”

How was it sent to the heavenly realm? By putting it to death. This part of the ritual would release its final binding to our world and send it into the heavens. “Priests” were set aside from ordinary life to preside, separated, so they could be understood as disconnected from this world.

This notion of sacrifice developed through the ages, and it came to be applied to Jesus and to Christianity. Here is a sketch of the 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). “Since the children share in blood and flesh, Jesus likewise shared in these things,” St. Paul says in the Second Reading. His crucifixion could then be seen as the death prescribed in sacrifice.

In the temple, Simeon rejoices in the following beautiful scene from 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.

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 it would be. Sacrifice includes suffering and it includes death. But in the very act of dying Jesus would show that Godliness, in its essence—which is love—survives death. And that such a life can dwell within each of us.

The 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 and made it good. 

John Foley, SJ

Fr. John Foley, SJ is a composer and scholar at Saint Louis University.

**From Saint Louis University