The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

FEBRUARY 2 is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. It commemorates that time when Mary and Joseph simply followed the law of the time to present the first-born to God for his consecration. (cfr. Lk 2,22-32)

There was actually no need for them to fulfill that law, since Christ does not need consecration, but they simply followed the law and custom of the time, a lesson for us not to feel privileged despite the privileges that we may have.

In the gospel reading of the feast, we are also told about Simeon, a righteous and devout man who was promised by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he sees Christ. That’s when we have these famous words of his, “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples…” (Lk 2,29-31)

Somehow, this feast reminds us that like Simeon we should always be looking for Christ, and we should not rest until we find him. If we go by our Christian faith, we know that we are assured of finding Christ, as long as we look for him.

We have to realize that this business of looking for Christ always is a grave duty of ours. Somehow, everything in our life depends on this duty, because Christ is actually everything for us. We are meant to be fully identified with him. That’s how we can attain the fullness of our humanity.

As Christ himself said, he is “the way, the truth and the life” for us. (cfr. Jn 14,6) We would not be consistent with our humanity if we are not with Christ. With Christ, we would have all the answers to all our questions, the solutions to all our problems, including those that cannot be solved humanly anymore.

When we constantly look for Christ, we would be men and women of sound judgment. We would know how to handle our weaknesses, temptations, failures, and sins and all the negative things in our life, as well as our victories and successes which can spoil us if not lived with him.

With him, we can manage to find joy and peace in any situation. We can find meaning and redemptive value to any situation in our life, and everything will work out for the good. (cfr. Rom 8,28) There will be a certain lightness of heart despite the burdens we may be bearing. In the end, we can fulfill the most important duty of our life, which is to give glory to God.

We should do our best in training ourselves to make it a constant habit to look for Christ always. We have to be wary of the many elements nowadays that would undermine such duty. We are bombarded with many distractions which are very powerful and attractive. We have to learn how to deal with this condition in our life, taking care of our intentions.

In this regard, it is helpful to make a number of pit stops during the day so we can establish, recover and maintain our proper spiritual and supernatural bearing. Let’s remember that we are notorious for being negligent of our duties, and for falling into the million ways of self-indulgence.

A person who looks for Christ always actually exudes a certain aura of holiness around him.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com