2 February 2023

Today is the feast day of the presentation of the Lord, where Jesus was brought to the temple to be circumcised and made ritually clean in the rites of the Old Law. Through this ritual, Jesus enters into the covenant that God made with his people. He is ritually purified within the life-giving action of God. He has no need of purification in himself, but like at his Baptism with John, it is fitting to fulfill all righteousness. It is fitting for Jesus to completely identify and enter into the human condition in all things but sin.

For all children in the time of Jesus, this presentation and purification ritual made them pure before God and others. Children possess a purity of heart before the Lord that Jesus, later in his life, will challenge his disciples to have “unless one becomes like this little child you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” Again to his disciples he says: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they will see God.” This beatitude seems to be an invitation to become childlike again, to become pure like the heart and mind of a child, like the heart and mind of Christ. Christ gives us his grace to undergo this purification in the Sacraments and he calls us to cultivate hearts of transparency with God like little children. Let us pray for the grace to be purified today of anything that prevents us from this childlike demeanor before God.