The Lord presented before the Lord in His House
Fourth Joyful Mystery
The Presentation
The Lord Presented in His Own Temple
In this mystery something happens on the level of divinity itself. Jesus, who is God, is presented to God in God's own house. The Son is carried into the Temple and offered before the Father, in the unity of the one Godhead and by the working of the Holy Ghost; the persons remain wholly distinct, yet it is God presented to God. It foreshadows the great sacrifice to come, where the Father receives the offering of the Son for the salvation of Man.
Because He became Man, Jesus submits to the Mosaic and Levitical Law. Under that Law He falls in the class of the firstborn, who belong to God and must be presented to Him, and so He is brought to the Temple in accordance with the Law He Himself gave.
Here we read the prophecy of Simeon, one of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it is a clear acknowledgment of Christ's divinity. This continues the theophany that runs through the Joyful Mysteries, the making-known of God, but with a turn: until now nearly every acknowledgment had come from angels, the Archangel Gabriel who first announced it to Mary, and the host at the Nativity. The one exception was St. Elizabeth at the Visitation, when she and the unborn St. John were filled with the Holy Ghost. Now the recognition comes again from a man, the just and devout Simeon, moved by the same Spirit. God is made known no longer only from heaven but from within His waiting people.
Simeon blesses God for having seen the salvation prepared before all peoples, then turns to Mary with the word of the sword. The joy of the Temple already carries the shadow of Calvary; the mother who presents Him here will stand beneath His Cross.
The Holy Family was obedient in bringing Jesus to the Temple according to the Mosaic Law, and in offering the sacrifices of thanksgiving and of the Blessed Virgin Mary's purification, again according to the Law. Their obedience is not mere legal compliance; it is the humble submission of the holy to a Law they did not need but freely kept.
At this presentation it was also made legally clear that, with St. Joseph as Jesus' foster father, Jesus was received into St. Joseph's household and so into the Davidic lineage. Therefore Jesus, who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, is established as a Davidic King in the eyes of the Law, fulfilling the Messianic prophecy.
Pray each verse, then the Ave Maria, letting St. Luke's account of the Presentation carry the decade.
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