Tamales and Menudo: (traditionally) what to bring to the party on Candelaria. Candlemas. That is, the feast of the presentation. That is, today.
In the story of Anna and Simeon, of Joseph and Mary and the baby, we see observance of the Levitical law that a woman, having given birth, brings her child to the temple and there enacts a ritual of purification.
Not moral purification, simply the laws allowing her to recover from the birth and retake her place in the worshiping community.
Many life events required ritual purification: even childbirth, however wonderful and beneficial, painful, dangerous, and joyful that childbirth could be, called for this ritual.
The end of it was indeed a celebration: the return of the mother to society after weeks of isolation, with her health hopefully restored, and her child, by now getting used to life outside the womb among us, welcomed too.
And there beside them, was Joseph, almost an angel, protecting, covering, comforting, accompanying.
And there to greet them were a faithful widow, the prophet Anna, who had been at the temple many years, and Simeon, a devout and righteous man, who had been anticipating, awaiting this day.
A child is born, a mother is returned to health. And yet more was happening this time, for this time, the child was Jesus.
Hail thou long expected Jesus: as Joshua your namesake who led the people into the land of promise, Jesus lead us into the future of promise now becoming real. Hail thou long expected Jesus, come to set your people free.
What Simeon saw and Anna praised was the hand of God at work, bringing to his people peace: peace, not as the world expected it and not a magical transformation, but the simple peace of knowing and loving God in each other and ourselves.
The temple where they awaited the savior was only a waiting place. Now they had to find the holiness they sought in the presence of God within each other and themselves.
In obedience to the law of love came the fulfillment of the promise.
The kingdom of heaven is like this: parents bring a child to the temple, where they are welcomed.
The kingdom of heaven is like this: fulfilling the role of the law brought them the savior who freed them for love.
It’s just a little child. A boy, in this case, circumcised and named eight days after his birth, and his mother, purified 33 days later.
If you do the math, that's eight days from December 25 to January 1 and 33 days from January 1 to February 2, fitting our worship calendar.
Nowadays, we don’t enact a ritual of purification as in the old days. The old prayers were for the churching of women after childbirth. Now we pray a prayer of Thanksgiving for the birth of a child. Now we add to the prayers our joy.
The joy the parents felt that day in the temple all parents should feel, as well as the dread and anticipation of sorrow that will pierce our own souls too.
We yearn for the transcendent joy that comes knowing God has come to us, bringing no ordinary deliverance or transitory kingdom, but the eternal reign of grace, of hope, of love, of peace.
But what does that look like today of all days, this year of all years?
A kingdom of peace? A reward for patient faithfulness?
I don’t want to wait until I am 84 years old. I don’t want to work for 80 years. People have, people do.
The kingdom of heaven is upon us already, but not yet, and the waiting and the working, the soul-searching patience, and the steadfast love that we await from God seems far away, and not close at hand, especially on some despairing days.
We do see things of hope go away, but we also see what has always been faithful service continuing.
Funding for social service can be fickle, from government or private sources. Casa Alitas has shut down. But we see that each day, each week, Samaritans venture into the desert looking for the lost. That is one example of continuing steadfast, faithfulness.
Faithfulness endures. Some years ago in another country in difficult times more difficult than ours. A man said to his friends that what is left at the ultimate moment is to pray and do what is right.
If we are that simple and that humble, we are on the right track.
Prayer sustains us, keeps us connected to what matters. And without fanfare, sometimes but rarely we can see far ahead, but usually we do know the next right thing to do, and by doing that, we move forward.
The promise of ages that Mary and Joseph and Simeon and Anna held in their arms was fragile. A promise just coming into being, but a promise beginning something wonderful – and how does it end? In a scene beyond dreams: when that child, enthroned in glory, will say:
To the people who simply prayed and did the next right thing:
I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was naked and you clothed me. I was imprisoned and you visited me. I was sick and you visited me. I was captive in my heart and you made my soul free.
Let us in dark days or happy times not lose the heart for joy or the patient faithfulness that is not ours to accomplish but a gift to receive.
Now, Lord: the fulfillment of the promise, let it begin, with me. Amen.
Christ the King Episcopal Church, Tucson.
Saturday 1 February 2025 6pm and Sunday 2 February 8 & 10:30am.
Saturday 1 February 2025 6pm and Sunday 2 February 8 & 10:30am.
https://ctktucson.org/sermons/tamales-and-menudo/
https://www.youtube.com/live/VfO8G-gdIEk?feature=shared
From A Service of Prayer for the Nation, January 21, 2025,
The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter & Saint Paul:
The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter & Saint Paul:
Prayers for Our Common Life
Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart and especially
the hearts of the people of this land, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear,
and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
People Amen.
O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for
justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with
mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
People Amen.
A Prayer for the Nation
Almighty God,
you have given us this good land as our heritage.
Make us always remember your generosity
and constantly do your will.
Bless our land with honest industry, sound learning,
and an honorable way of life.
Save us from violence, discord, and confusion;
from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way.
Make us who come from many nations
with many different languages a united people.
Defend our liberties and give those whom we have entrusted
with the authority of government the spirit of wisdom,
that there might be justice and peace in our land.
When times are prosperous, let our hearts be thankful;
and, in troubled times, do not let our trust in you fail.
We ask all this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
People Amen.
https://cathedral.org/calendar/a-service-of-prayer-for-the-nation/
https://www.youtube.com/live/PhHE8fvf92M
Here is George L. Kline’s translation of the poem, from Joseph Brodsky, A Part of Speech (NY: Noonday, 1996), pp. 55-7:
‘Nunc Dimittis’
When Mary first came to present the Christ Child
to God in His temple, she found—of those few
who fasted and prayed there, departing not from it—
devout Simeon and the prophetess Anna.
The holy man took the Babe up in his arms.
The three of them, lost in the grayness of dawn,
now stood like a small shifting frame that surrounded
the Child in the palpable dark of the temple.
The temple enclosed them in forests of stone.
Its lofty vaults stooped as though trying to cloak
the prophetess Anna, and Simeon, and Mary—
to hide them from men and to hide them from Heaven.
And only a chance ray of light struck the hair
of that sleeping Infant, who stirred but as yet
was conscious of nothing and blew drowsy bubbles;
old Simeon's arms held him like a stout cradle.
It had been revealed to this upright old man
that he would not die until his eyes had seen
the Son of the Lord. And it thus came to pass. And
he said: ‘Now, O Lord, lettest thou thy poor servant,
according to thy holy word, leave in peace,
for mine eyes have witnessed thine offspring: he is
thy continuation and also the source of
thy Light for idolatrous tribes, and the glory
of Israel as well.' The old Simeon paused.
The silence, regaining the temple's clear space
oozed from all its corners and almost engulfed them,
and only his echoing words grazed the rafters,
to spin for a moment, with faint rustling sounds,
high over their heads in the tall temple's vaults,
akin to a bird that can soar, yet that cannot
return to the earth, even if it should want to.
A strangeness engulfed them. The silence now seemed
as strange as the words of old Simeon's speech.
And Mary, confused and bewildered, said nothing—
so strange had his words been. He added, while turning
directly to Mary: ‘Behold, in this Child,
now close to thy breast, is concealed the great fall
of many, the great elevation of others,
a subject of strife and a source of dissension,
and that very steel which will torture his flesh
shall pierce through thine own soul as well. And that wound
will show to thee, Mary, as in a new vision
what lies hidden, deep in the hearts of all people.’
He ended and moved toward the temple's great door.
Old Anna, bent down with the weight of her years,
and Mary, now stooping gazed after him, silent.
He moved and grew smaller, in size and in meaning,
to these two frail women who stood in the gloom.
As though driven on by the force of their looks,
he strode through the cold empty space of the temple
and moved toward the whitening blur of the doorway.
The stride of his old legs was steady and firm.
When Anna's voice sounded behind him, he slowed
his step for a moment. But she was not calling
to him; she had started to bless God and praise Him.
The door came still closer. The wind stirred his robe
and fanned at his forehead; the roar of the street,
exploding in life by the door of the temple,
beat stubbornly into old Simeon's hearing.
He went forth to die. It was not the loud din
of streets that he faced when he flung the door wide,
but rather the deaf-and-dumb fields of death's kingdom.
He strode through a space that was no longer solid.
The rustle of time ebbed away in his ears.
And Simeon's soul held the form of the Child—
its feathery crown now enveloped in glory—
aloft, like a torch, pressing back the black shadows,
to light up the path that leads into death's realm,
where never before until this present hour
had any man managed to lighten his pathway.
The old man's torch glowed and the pathway grew wider.
https://logismoitouaaron.blogspot.com/2009/02/nunc-dimittis.html
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