Light from the Altar - The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, 21 November

Picture a little maiden robed in white and crowned with roses, her hands joined and her face uplifted, ascending a broad flight of stairs. The steps are strewn with blossoms as for a great festival. In the porch above, a venerable Jewish priest sits, and, with wide open arms, welcomes the child. On either side of his chair are other little ones beckoning lovingly to the new arrival, whilst a very young baby, standing on its mother's outspread cloak, lifts its tiny hands in prayer. In the foreground kneel Joachim and Anna offering up to God their most precious treasure.

Tradition says that our Lady at the age of three was presented by her parents to God in the Temple, to be brought up within its walls and dedicated to its service. If the tradition had. not arisen from fact, it might well have come from the fitness of things. Since Jewish children were sometimes brought up in the temple, who so likely as Anna's sinless child? Since some little ones chose God's house for their home, who so likely as the "Spiritual Vessel?" Since some dedicated themselves body and soul from their earliest years, how much more the future mother of God? And so painters from early times have loved to depict this scene - Mary's presentation in the temple.

The Feast is kept on the 21st of November, and a beautiful feast it is, full of meaning, exhortation, and upward beckonings. Mary with full knowledge and free will leaves her home and parents, her little companions, her home joys, and begins a twelve-years' preparation for a life of joy and sorrow and glory such as no other human being will ever again go through. And we look back at those twelve years and think of their seclusion. A great French writer admired most good deeds done in absolute secrecy. Ever so little publicity spoiled them in his eyes, no matter how good they were in themselves. Of our Lord's thirty years upon earth no whisper has come down; of our Lady's twelve not a rumor.

The life in the temple is, however, easy to imagine. There were humble duties to be done - cleansing the vessels, trimming the lamps, setting out the utensils for the sacrifices; there was needlework, mending, embroidering the elaborate vestments used by the priests in their different religious functions. There was the duty of special instruction and prayer. The rich treasury of the Old Testament full of deep meaning to us, far more to Mary, the Woman foretold, was explained, and large portions committed to memory. Think of Mary with the sacred scroll in her little hands; think of her eager face listening to instruction; think of her with needle in her fingers working for a priesthood fast passing away; think of her handling with reverence vessels still sacred, but so soon to lose their character.

And then think of ourselves. Meditation should always end in resolution. I look at my manual work and at my prayer, and I place it next to Mary's. Will it bear comparison? Is there anything wanting? What? Earnestness perhaps, spiritual vigor, purity of intention. Or that ingredient of the saints - secrecy, hiddenness. We live far too much in the world, in the sight of men, for their applause. We take their standard, and are satisfied if we come up to it. We use worldly weights and measures, and are proud to find that the balance is on our side. And yet we have ringing in our ears the words of our Lord: "Be ye perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect." Oh, for a little quiet and silence to think out the great problem of life! When shall we begin our preparation for the higher life? The present only is ours. The future may be; the past was; the present only is. We must begin today then if we would be sure of beginning at all. And there could be no better day for a start. We like company for an enterprise; here we have the company of our Virgin Mother. Good example helps us; Mary is doing much the same work as falls to our lot. Ours is humble, perhaps; so was hers. Ours is done in seclusion, so much the better; so was hers. It will be easier to keep in the aroma of our good deeds. Let us then go hand in hand with Mary, and do our business and take our pleasure with her, asking her to be our companion and guide.

- taken from Light from the Altar, edited by Father James J McGovern, 1906