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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Christmastide Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Presentation Scripture

The light of hope

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Living in times that are challenging, uncertain, even frightening it can be hard to keep hold of hope. It feels much easier to give in to despair and to allow darkness to have the upper hand. There is so much to worry and concern us that it can even feel like hope is at best naïve and at worst pointless. Today’s feast, the Presentation of the Lord is the last feast that touches on Christmastide. It promises us that even in the darkest times there is light, and that however dark it gets the light will not be overwhelmed.

The prophetess Anna encapsulates this hope. She was a woman who based her whole life on hope. Widowed after seven years and living constant threat that comes of being in a country occupied by a foreign power she knew suffering and challenge. She’s sustained by a deep and lasting faith that the Lord will fulfil the promises made to her people. She spent her life in the Temple, praying, waiting, and hoping. Like Simeon, she recognises that the child presented by Mary and Joseph is no ordinary child, he is the long-awaited Messiah:

“She came by just at that moment and began to praise God; and she spoke of the child to all who looked forward to the deliverance of Jerusalem.”

She knew what it meant to keep on hoping even when hope seemed lost in the long shadows of hopelessness. It is out of these shadowy and sometimes painful experiences that she is able to recognise the presence of Christ, the promise light of the world in the most unlikely of circumstances.

As we celebrate the feast of the Presentation what helps you to keep the light of hope alive in your life?

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Bearers of Light

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Apologies for the lateness of this post. I’ve been having technical issues. Today we’re celebrating the feast of the Presentation. It strikes me as a feast that looks both backwards and forwards. Its liturgy resonates very much with the Christmas liturgy, as we revisit Christmas hymns and antiphons. Yet, it also compels us to look forward to the new beginning heralded by the coming of the Messiah. Like Simeon and Anna, we are called to draw hope from our heritage and move forward into the unknown bearing the light of Christ for our world and our times. The second reading last night at the vigil was from St Sophronius. Today I have found myself reflecting on these words:

Let us all go together bright with the light to welcome with old Simeon that everlasting shining light. Rejoicing with him in our souls, let us sing a hymn to the Begetter and Father of the light, who has sent the true light and driven away the darkness and made us all shine with that light.”

It’s not the first time I’ve reflected on them, and each time I revisit them they remind me that, in these last dark, cold days of winter we are called to be bearers of the light of Christ to each other and to the world. This year I’m very aware of the many darknesses that the world faces. It can feel overwhelming and we can easily feel hopeless.

Yet the opposite is true. In these dark times it’s even more important that we become bearers of that light for our suffering world. As well as looking back to the coming of the Light at Christmas I find myself looking forward through the pain and suffering of these times to the new light and life that Easter promises, trusting that, however small the light may sometimes feel, it will not be overcome.

As we celebrate the feast of the Presentation where is Christ calling you to be his light bearer today?