The Presentation

The Presentation in the Temple is the fourth of the Joyful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. It commemorates the moment, forty days after the Nativity, when Mary and Joseph took the infant Jesus to the Temple at Jerusalem to fulfill the requirements of the Mosaic Law: the purification of the mother (Leviticus 12:1-8) and the redemption of the firstborn son (Exodus 13:2, 13:11-15).

The mystery

The narrative is recorded in Saint Luke 2:22-38. The Holy Family travels from Bethlehem to the Temple at Jerusalem to fulfill the prescriptions of the Mosaic Law. There they encounter two figures who have been awaiting the consolation of Israel: the elderly priest Simeon and the eighty-four-year-old prophetess Anna.

Simeon takes the child in his arms and prays the Nunc Dimittis ("Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace"), which is recited daily at Compline (Night Prayer) in the Liturgy of the Hours. He then turns to Mary and prophesies: "Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted, and you yourself a sword will pierce." This is the first of the prophecies of the Passion in the Gospel narrative, and it is delivered to Mary at the moment of her ritual purification.

The prophetess Anna, "who never left the temple," gives thanks to God and speaks of the child to all who are awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.

Meditation on obedience

The traditional spiritual fruit of the Presentation is obedience. The mystery presents the obedience of the Holy Family to the requirements of the Mosaic Law. Mary, who was preserved from original sin from the moment of her conception (the dogma of the Immaculate Conception), did not require ritual purification; the infant Jesus, who is the Lord of the Temple, did not require redemption as a firstborn. Yet they fulfill the Law in obedience.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, in his second sermon on the Purification, observes that Mary's obedience in this mystery is the model of all Catholic obedience to the Church and to legitimate authority: not because the obligation falls upon her in the strictest sense, but because the order of love demands the witness of submission to the divinely sanctioned order.¹

The feast of the Presentation of the Lord is celebrated in the Catholic Church on February 2, also called Candlemas, the fortieth day after the Nativity. On this day, candles are blessed for use throughout the year, in remembrance of Simeon's words: "a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel."²

Praying the Presentation

To pray the fourth Joyful Mystery: announce "The fourth Joyful Mystery, the Presentation," pray an Our Father, ten Hail Marys while meditating on the offering of the infant Jesus in the Temple and the prophecies of Simeon and Anna, and conclude with a Glory Be and the Fatima Prayer.

For the previous mystery, see the Nativity. For the next mystery, see the Finding in the Temple.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, In Purificatione Beatae Mariae, Sermon II. ↩

2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 529 and 583, on the Presentation in the Temple. ↩