“Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also”
It is a parenthetical remark, a literary device which, far from being a throw-away line, reveals profoundly the mystery that lies at the heart of Candlemas and wonderfully, it seems to me, to the end of the Epiphany season. Epiphany concentrates our attention on the mystery of God revealed in and through the humanity of Jesus. Mary, it seems, is an essential figure of the Christmas and Epiphany mysteries and beyond. She “kept all the sayings about Jesus and pondered them in her heart,” just as she “kept all these sayings in her heart” of Jesus, just as she calls our attention to what Jesus says and does. “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” And today, with Joseph, she “marvels at those things which were spoken of him,” by Simeon. It is the meaning for us of her fiat mihi, “be it unto me according to thy word.” She represents and embodies the very meaning of our humanity in relation to God. All these stories speak to the idea of being defined by the word of God. Nothing less and nothing more.
To end the Epiphany season with the double-barrelled feast of “The Presentation of Christ in the Temple commonly called the Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin,” mercifully concentrated for us in the term ‘Candlemas,’ along with the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, is especially wonderful. Why? Because it concentrates the Epiphany theme about the essential divinity of Christ revealed through his humanity and in his engagement with the natural world. It concentrates that for us through the figure of Mary, the very embodiment of what it means to be human. Here is Simeon’s word to her and about her and by extension for us.
The story of the Presentation and the Purification is somewhat complex and yet quite simple. A kind of service of dedication and thanksgiving to God for childbirth, it is about the customs and practices of ancient Judaism with respect to the Law and to the centrality of the Temple as the focus of worship and life and yet extends beyond that setting to something much more universal. It is found in the theme of waiting for the redemption not just of Israel but through Israel of the whole of our humanity. The cost of that is shown in Simeon’s prophecy about Mary, his insight into her character and witness: “yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also.” The reference is to Christ’s passion. “They shall look on him whom they have pierced.” Christ is pierced – crucified – in the body of our humanity as derived from Mary, thus she too is pierced. It signals the intimacy of Mary and Christ, of mother and son. There is no knowledge, no salvation apart from suffering, apart from the forms of our participation in the life of God. Candlemas signals that truth to us and in a way which complements the Gospel for Epiphany IV.
Christ’s divinity means that he is the principle of the natural world; his humanity means that he is subject to the conditions of that world. Both meet in the conjunction of these feasts in the revelation of Christ as the light of the world, “a light to lighten the Gentiles,” as the Nunc Dimittis proclaims. That light is our strength and comfort in the very midst of the storms of the world. “What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Epiphany reveals the essential divinity of Christ through his humanity. He is the Lord God of all creation, the master of storm and sea, and the one in whom alone we find our consolation and strength, our peace and calm.
We are called to be not only like Mary but also like Simeon and Anna waiting upon “the Lord’s Christ” coming to us and being with us, come what may in the ups and downs of human experience and in the conflicts and confusions of our world and day. Here is “the peace which passeth all understanding” because it grounds all human knowing on God’s infinite knowing and love revealed in Christ.
Candlemas marks the transition from Christmas to Easter, from light to life. It is the meeting of old and young, men and women, Old Law and New, God and man. The meeting is in the Temple at Jerusalem. The feast marks Christ’s first coming to the Temple in Jerusalem, carried in the arms of Mary and Joseph; it anticipates his last coming to Jerusalem which marks his passion and death.
Simeon’s words to Mary do not eclipse the sense of joy at beholding the child Christ so much as deepen its meaning. His words to Mary signal the essential note of redemptive suffering, of sacrifice and service, which belongs to our vocation. That it happens in the Temple reminds us of the necessity of the Church as the body and place in which we learn God’s will for our humanity. The Temple is the body and place in which we participate in what God seeks for us. He seeks our good in the overcoming of sin and evil. Such is the light and glory of Candlemas that anticipates the story of human redemption “that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” Our hearts, too. Candlemas marks the ending of Epiphany this year and launches us into the Gesima Sundays of Pre-Lent. Those Sundays speak to the qualities or virtues of the soul as transformed by grace. What has been revealed outwardly has now to be grasped inwardly. What that will mean is signalled in Simeon’s word to Mary.
“Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also”
Fr. David Curry
Candlemas / Epiphany IV
February 2nd, 2020