The Feast
of the Meeting of Christ in the Temple (February 2) is a feast of the
elderly. When the Holy Family entered the Temple courts
to offer the required sacrifice for the purification of Mary after her giving
birth to Jesus, her Son was recognized as the Messiah by only two people,
picked out by the power and illumination of the Spirit from all the multitudes
of people swarming through the holy courts, and these two were very
elderly. Christ was practically a
newborn (little over forty days old) and His Mother was young herself, probably
about fourteen years old. But the two
people who identified them as the Messiah and His Mother were themselves “well
stricken with age” (as the phrase has it), so that fresh-faced youth collided
with the wrinkled faces of the elderly.
The first
wrinkled face belonged to Simeon. God
had promised him that he would not die before he saw the Messiah, and he lived
in that luminous hope. Every day he rose
up from his bed wondering if today would be the day, and every night he retired
a disappointed man. Year succeeded year
and still he went to his bed with the promise unfulfilled. Then one day, led by the Spirit, he entered
the Temple and God pointed out among the hundreds thronging those sacred courts
a young woman accompanied by a much older man, and in her arms, a young
baby: that child was the Messiah. Boldly he approached them and took the child
into his aged arms, praying, “Lord, now You are dismissing Your servant”—a
declaration, not a prayer; the Greek verb is in the present tense—and he knew
that this child was the sign that he God was dismissing him and he could now
die in peace. His eyes had beheld the
Messiah, He who was to enlighten all the nations of the world and glorify the
people of Israel. Simeon’s age is not
given, but he was clearly elderly, for he was now ready to die a happy
man. (Traditions which make him one of
the translators of the Greek Septuagint offer poetic symbolism and not sober
history, for that would make Simeon about 250 years old.)
The other
person to recognize the babe in arms as the Messiah was also elderly. Anna was a prophetess—not someone who stood
and publically proclaimed oracles like Isaiah did, but a woman to whom God
confided things and who stood deep in His secret counsels. St. Luke reported that after her marriage she
lived with her husband for seven years, making her about twenty-one or so when
she suddenly became a widow. Instead of
remarrying she remained in that state, taking her grief into the presence of
God and remaining in the Temple day and night—not literally day and night, for
there is no reason to think that the Jewish Temple offered dormitories for
women—but virtually day and night. She
was the first one to enter the Temple when its gates opened and the last one to
leave, and she spent all her time fasting, praying, worshipping, and pouring
out her heart to the Lord. The Greek
text of Luke 2:37 says she was “a widow of eighty-four years”, which could mean
that she was eighty-four when she met the Holy Family or that she remained a widow
for eighty-four years, which would make her about 105 when she met the Holy
Family. Either way, she was a very, very
old woman.
God thus
chose as the vehicles for His revelation two people who had walked with Him for
many years, and who had served Him for decades.
He could have chosen anyone, including younger people, people with
strength, vigour, and the ability to cross land and sea with the important
news. He didn’t. Instead He chose two people who were
wrinkled, white-haired (or balding), stiff and bent with age, people who had
grown old in His service, people who were soon to die. What does this mean? It means that faithful service is important,
and that God honours age. It means that
our own goal should be to grow similarly old in the service of God, so that God
can confide in us as He did to Simeon and Anna.
Our own
culture does not value age. Age is
shameful, and the elderly are often shunted off, disappearing into nursing
homes, their presence an unwanted burden, their witness and voice of no
account. Our culture instead values
youth, and we are often treated to the sight of young celebrity
twenty-somethings being interviewed on television and consulted about their
views on everything from politics to spirituality. When I see such young wrinkle-free celebrities
sitting on talk shows and pontificating I often want to shout at the
television, “Why are you asking them?
They are scarcely old enough to legally vote, drink, or drive, and you
think they have some secret wisdom to impart?
Their grandparents have forgotten more than they themselves know! Why aren’t you asking their
grandparents?” Alas, the experience of
the elderly, accumulated often through suffering, too often counts for
nothing. They have committed the
ultimate offense: they are old, wrinkled,
and not pretty. Not even Botox could
disguise their shame.
Saner
societies than ours take a different view.
The Scriptures counsel us to “rise up before the hoary head and honour
the face of an old man” (Leviticus 19:32)—i.e. to stand up when a person old
enough to have white hair enters the room.
Significantly the commandment is rooted in basic respect not just for
the elderly, but for God, for the verse ends with the words, “and you shall
fear your God; I am the Lord”. Indeed,
many if not most societies demand respect for the elderly. Even our own canonical tradition insists upon
a certain maturity for its office-holders:
deacons may not be ordained until they reach twenty-five years;
presbyters until they reach thirty years, and bishops until they reach
thirty-five. And in those days, thirty
years of age was older than it is now, for a man thirty years old had been
married for a while and you could tell how his children were turning out. It is otherwise now; thirty is the new twenty. The point is the Church valued maturity, and
made it an essential requirement for those in its service.
Simeon
and Anna thus counsel us to flee from the inanity of our culture which despises
age and idolizes youth, and return again to a place which respects the wisdom
which only the passing of years can bestow.
There are exceptions, of course.
Some old people remain foolish and stupid, and some young people are
replete with a wisdom beyond their years.
But these exceptions prove the rule.
The Feast of the Meeting brings to our attention God’s choice of the
elderly as His vehicles for divine insight.
Let us aspire to follow in their footsteps, and grow old in the service
and wisdom of God.
Source: http://frlawrencefarley.blogspot.com.by/2017/02/the-feast-of-meeting-celebration-of.html
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