The Presentation of the Lord
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord which falls on Sunday this year. During Ordinary Time, feast days are normally transferred when they fall on the Lord’s Day. But solemnities of our Lord and of Mary, and of high-ranking saints like St. Peter and St. Paul, take precedence over an Ordinary Time Sunday. This gives us a rare opportunity to celebrate the great feast of the Presentation at our Sunday Mass!
February 2 is exactly 40 days after Christmas. Although this doesn’t mean that we’ve been in Christmas season all these weeks, the feast is related to the Christmas event, obviously as the infant Jesus is presented in the temple. It is appropriate even to sing a last Christmas carol! This is the day when Joseph and Mary presented the newborn Jesus at the temple and “bought” him back from God with an offering of two turtledoves, as prescribed by the Jewish Law. This was the custom for every first-born Jewish male.
And finally, February 2 is also known as Candlemas Day, when in some parishes, all the candles that will be used for the year are blessed as part of the Entrance Rite. Because it is winter and a time when more people become ill with flu and colds, we will be blessing throats at the end of all the masses today (in honor of St. Blaise, Feb 4th).
I will fly out this afternoon to visit our seminarians who are studying at three different seminaries: St. Vincent de Paul in Boynton Beach, FL, Notre Dame in New Orleans and St. Joseph College seminary in Covington, La. It is part of my duties as vocation director to visit and receive annual updates on the formation of each of our seminarians. I will fly back next Sunday evening. Thank you to Fr. Jerry Ragan, Fr. Joe Smith, and Fr. John Lyons for covering the masses for us!
For my part, I am happy to be flying south for the winter. I try not to visit our northern seminaries in January and February!
Thank you for your goodness and love for the Lord Jesus and his Church! And please remember my “genuflection prayer” (the little prayer I pray every time I genuflect or kneel in the church) “Jesus, nobody loves me like You do!”
Fr. Brett Brannen
Pastor