images of the presentation of mary in the temple

• Saint of the Day

Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

• November 21
• Franciscan Media

Image:   Presentation of Mary in the Temple  | Alfonso Boschi | photo by sailko

Saint of the day for november 21.

The Story of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Mary’s presentation was celebrated in Jerusalem in the sixth century. A church was built there in honor of this mystery. The Eastern Church was more interested in the feast, but it does appear in the West in the 11th century. Although the feast at times disappeared from the calendar, in the 16th century it became a feast of the universal Church.

As with Mary’s birth, we read of Mary’s presentation in the temple only in apocryphal literature. In what is recognized as an unhistorical account, the  Protoevangelium of James  tells us that Anna and Joachim offered Mary to God in the Temple when she was 3 years old. This was to carry out a promise made to God when Anna was still childless.

Though it cannot be proven historically, Mary’s presentation has an important theological purpose. It continues the impact of the feasts of the Immaculate Conception and of the birth of Mary. It emphasizes that the holiness conferred on Mary from the beginning of her life on earth continued through her early childhood and beyond.

It is sometimes difficult for modern Westerners to appreciate a feast like this. The Eastern Church, however, was quite open to this feast and even somewhat insistent about celebrating it. Even though the feast has no basis in history, it stresses an important truth about Mary: From the beginning of her life, she was dedicated to God. She herself became a greater temple than any made by hands. God came to dwell in her in a marvelous manner and sanctified her for her unique role in God’s saving work. At the same time, the magnificence of Mary enriches her children. They—we—too are temples of God and sanctified in order that we might enjoy and share in God’s saving work.

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PHOTOS: Discover 8 Beautiful Images of the Virgin Mary in St. Peter’s Basilica

‘Virtual tour’ for the feast of Mary, Mother of the Church

Courtney Mares/CNA, May 29, 2023

To honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Vatican offers a special Marian pilgrimage within St. Peter’s Basilica each Saturday afternoon during the month of May.

The Marian itinerary brings pilgrims from the moving marble sculpture of Michelangelo’s  Pietà  to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a 12th-century painting brought into the basilica in 1578 in a solemn procession.

For those unable to travel to the Eternal City, CNA is providing the following “virtual tour” of eight beautiful images of Our Lady in St. Peter’s Basilica for the feast of Mary, Mother of the Church.

In St. Peter‘s Basilica’s Chapel of the Choir, a large mosaic based on a painting by Italian artist Pietro Bianchi depicts Mary, Virgin Immaculate, in the glory of heaven being venerated by St. John Chrysostom (left) and other saints. | Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Virgin Immaculate

In the basilica’s Chapel of the Choir, a large altarpiece reveals Mary, Virgin Immaculate, in the glory of heaven above angels and saints. The mosaic, based on an 18th-century painting by Italian artist Pietro Bianchi, depicts St. John Chrysostom St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Anthony of Padua venerating the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The chapel can be found on the left side of the basilica behind an iron gate designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. St. John Chrysostom is buried beneath the altar, which also contains relics of St. Francis and St. Anthony.

When Pope Pius IX declared the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary on Dec. 8, 1854, he had a golden crown added to the mosaic of Mary. Pope Pius X later added a larger diamond crown to mark the 50th anniversary of the declaration in 1904.

The original painting by Bianchi can be found in Rome’s Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri.

Mother of the Church

St. Peter’s Basilica contains an icon of the Virgin Mary titled ‘Mater Ecclesiae,’ which means ‘Mother of the Church.’ | Daniel Ibañez/CNA

The basilica contains an icon of the Virgin Mary titled  Mater Ecclesiae , which means “Mother of the Church.”

The original image of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child was painted on a column in old St. Peter’s Basilica, built by Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. It was later transferred to the 16th-century St. Peter’s Basilica. Paul VI honored the icon with the title  Mater Ecclesiae after the Second Vatican Council.

The icon can still be seen above one of the basilica’s side altars in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Column, which also contains the remains of  Pope St. Leo the Great (440-461).

A mosaic of the Virgin Mary overlooking St. Peter’s Square was inspired by the original  Mater Ecclesiae  image. The mosaic was installed after the assassination attempt against St. John Paul II in 1981.

When he blessed the mosaic, John Paul II prayed “that all those who will come to this St. Peter’s Square will lift up their gaze towards you [Mary], to direct, with feelings of filial trust, their greetings and their prayers.”

In 2018, Pope Francis added the memorial of “Mary, Mother of the Church” to the liturgical calendar for the Monday after Pentecost.

Mother of Pilgrims

A restored 16th-century painting of Our Lady holding her Son can be found in St. Peter’s Basilica above the sarcophagus of Pope Gregory XIV under the title ‘Mother of Pilgrims.’ | Daniel Ibañez/CNA

A restored 16th-century painting of Our Lady holding her Son can be found in St. Peter’s Basilica above the sarcophagus of  Pope Gregory XIV.

The image is titled  Mater Peregrinorum  (Mother of Pilgrims). The original artist is not known, but Italians also refer to the painting as the  Madonna di Scossacavalli  because it came from Rome’s Church of San Giacomo Scossacavalli, which was demolished in 1937 to create the current Via della Conciliazione leading to St. Peter’s Basilica.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

A 12th-century painting on wood titled Our Lady of Perpetual Help in the Gregorian Chapel of St. Peter’s Basilica | Daniel Ibañez/CNA

A 12th-century painting on wood titled Our Lady of Perpetual Help, also known as Our Lady of Succor, was transferred to an altar in St. Peter’s Gregorian Chapel on Feb. 12, 1578, with a solemn procession.

The painting was the first artistic restoration completed under Pope Francis’ pontificate during the Year of Faith, according to a book published by the Knights of Columbus.

The remains of the doctor of the Church St. Gregory of Nazianzus (d. 390) are preserved in an urn beneath the Altar of Our Lady of Succor in the Gregorian Chapel, found on the right side of the basilica.

Ark of the Covenant

A mosaic altarpiece of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple can be found above the tomb of Pope St. Pius X near the left-front entrance of the basilica. | Daniel Ibañez/CNA

A colorful mosaic altarpiece of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple brightens the wall above the tomb of Pope St. Pius X (d. 1914) in the Presentation Chapel near the left-front entrance of the basilica.

A young Mary is depicted on the steps of the Temple with her parents, Sts. Anne and Joachim, the grandparents of Jesus.

The mosaic completed by Pietro Paolo Cristofari in 1728 is based on a painting by 17th-century artist Giovanni Francesco Romaneli, the original of which can be found in Rome’s Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri.

Gate of Heaven

According to Father Agnello Stoia, the pastor of the parish of St. Peter’s Basilica, the 15th-century image of Mary on the oldest door of St. Peter’s Basilica is a reminder of Mary’s title Gate of Heaven. | Daniel Ibañez/CNA

The central door leading to basilica was retained from the old St. Peter’s Basilica and is known as the Filarete Door. Created by a Florentine artist in 1455, the door depicts Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the apostles Sts. Peter and Paul.

According to Father Agnello Stoia, the pastor of the parish of St. Peter’s Basilica, the 15th-century image of Mary on the door is a reminder of Mary’s title of Gate of Heaven.

Queen Assumed Into Heaven

The mosaics decorating the interior dome of St. Peter’s Basilica depict the Blessed Virgin Mary next to Christ the Redeemer and the apostles. | Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Looking up at the soaring cupola, or dome, of St. Peter’s Basilica, one sees mosaics depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary next to Christ the Redeemer, along with St. John the Baptist and the apostles.

The mosaic of the Virgin Mary on the Great Dome, completed in 1610 by Orazio Gentileschi, is based on drawings by Italian Mannerist painter Giuseppe Cesari.

Mother of the Redeemer

Michelangelo’s Pietà conveys the faith and emotion of the Blessed Virgin Mary as she cradles in her arms the dead body of her only Son after witnessing him crucified. | Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Michelangelo Buonarroti carved the  Pietà  from a single slab of Carrara marble when he was 24 years old. The sculpture was unveiled in St. Peter’s Basilica for the Jubilee of 1500.

The moving sculpture conveys the faith and emotion of the Blessed Virgin Mary as she cradles in her arms the dead body of her only Son after witnessing him crucified.

The sculpture sits above a side altar near the front entrance of St. Peter’s Basilica, where Mass was sometimes offered before recent restrictions. Visitors to the basilica can only see the Pietà  behind bulletproof glass after a man attacked the sculpture with a hammer in May 1972.

The  Pietà  was the only work of art that Michelangelo ever signed.

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Joyful Mysteries, Transformed: Mary’s Presentation Changes Everything

The November 21 Feast of the Presentation of Mary changes the picture of Mary’s life most of us have, considerably.

The feast has been celebrated since the early days of Christianity, especially in the East. The Western Church has been less dedicated to the feast, and now we stress that this is the anniversary of Saint Mary’s church in Jerusalem rather than risk “ celebrating something that never happened .”

But Doctor of the Church St. Alphonsus Ligouri delights in the story of Mary being Presented in the Temple as a small child then living there, being educated in Scripture. Michael Hesemann in 2011’s Mary of Nazareth suggests that key evidence supports this ancient tradition.

The Church is no stranger to the custom of girls being raised in this way.

I imagine Mary’s life in ancient Jerusalem being not unlike the life of St. Gertrude the Great in 13th century Germany. Gertrude began her education in the Benedictine convent in her childhood, and lived her life by the prayer bells of the convent, learning Scripture, including the leading commentators, and doing chores in the Abbey.

Mary would have been deeply steeped in scripture as well, understanding the implications of the Old Testament prophecies and reciting the Psalms, including Psalm 24: “One thing I ask of the LORD; this I seek: To dwell in the LORD’s house all the days of my life, to gaze on the LORD’s beauty.”

Imagining Mary’s story with this background changes our understanding of her who life — starting with the five Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary.

First, the Annunciation, and Mary’s relationship with Joseph, becomes clearer.

In The Nativity Story (2005), The Star (2017) and   Journey to Bethlehem (2023) envisions Mary and Joseph’s marriage in a conventionally romantic way. But if she grew up in the Temple, we can imagine her story differently.

Think of each line from Luke’s account of the Annunciation with Mary’s Temple background in mind.

The angel Gabriel is sent “to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.” If Mary’s parents had presented her to live in the Temple when she was very young and they were very old, then the story of her betrothal is in large part a matter of Mary being provided for upon leaving the Temple.

The angel tells Mary that she will conceive and bear a son “and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.” A girl educated in the Temple, Mary would have known exactly what that means: She was to be the mother of the messiah.

Mary responds : “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” That response is strange for a woman betrothed to be married, but it makes much more sense if we know she has made a special commitment to celibacy — as someone presented in the Temple would have done — and if it is a commitment she intends to keep.

Mary says , “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.” If she had lived in the Temple, then that phrase was literally true about her: She spent her childhood helping in the Lord’s house.

Second, the Visitation story makes a new kind of sense.

In the Gospel, after being told that she will be the mother of the Lord, the Blessed Mother is told that her cousin Elizabeth, the wife of Temple priest Zechariah, is pregnant. She goes in haste to help.

I always pictured this as a girl who has grown up helping around her house going to another house to help out. But her Temple background would make this the story of a helper who is uniquely suited for the role of serving a Temple priest’s household.

And a girl educated in the Temple would have had the rich knowledge of Scripture necessary to compose the Magnificat .

Even the Nativity of Jesus takes on a new dimension.

Bethlehem, just outside Jerusalem, was a city of sheep and shepherds — appropriately enough for David’s town — because many sheep were needed for families participating in the Temple sacrifice.

We might forget how the constant sacrifices that happened in the Temple must have made it a place where many animals were kept and much blood had to be dealt with at all times. But a girl who grew up there certainly wouldn’t forget it.

So it would have been especially poignant for Mary to travel so close to her childhood home to give birth among the animals and to be visited by shepherds.

And whether she lived in the Temple or not, after the crucifixion, the significance would not be lost on the Blessed Mother that the Lamb of God entered the world where so many sacrificial lambs had also been born.  You see this aspect of the story emphasized in the Gospel written by John, who lived with her.

Of course, her Presentation would also lend more significance to the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.

I have always thought of the moment when the holy man Simeon sees the baby Jesus as a miracle of recognition: Simeon knew Jesus at first sight. But if Mary spent her childhood at the Temple, it is not hard to imagine that he had seen her before.

In fact, pious legends speak of how her holiness was obvious to the Rabbis and helpers at the Temple. When Simeon sees the child, it is possible that he recognizes Christ’s significance in part because he already knows her significance — and that when he prophesies that a sword will pierce Mary’s heart, he may be sharing a prophecy he has had for a long time.

And we are explicitly told that Anna, who also praised the baby Jesus, had lived a long time in the Temple . If Mary had also, then surely Anna knew her — maybe very well.

But the most poignant connection of all is the Finding in the Temple.

When Joseph and Mary finally find the boy Jesus after having lost him for three days, he says “Did you not know I would be in my Father’s house?”

If Mary had grown up in or near the Temple she would have personally known no other home than this as a child herself.  So instead of imagining that Jesus’ words simply meant, “God is my true Father. Of course I would be here!” We could maybe imagine they also mean: “This place is your home, too. Isn’t this where you would go?”

In the end, we can understand Mary’s special relationship with the Temple no matter where she grew up.

Mary is compared to the Ark of the Covenant, and she is the first and best example of the Christian understanding that “your body is a temple.”

Whether she lived there or not, she loved the Temple, and felt the full power of Psalm 84: How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, God of hosts. … They are happy, who dwell in your house, for ever singing your praise.”

A version of this appeared at Aleteia . Image: Presentation of the Virgin by Titian – Accademia – Venice 2016

Tom Hoopes, author of The Rosary of Saint John Paul II and The Fatima Family Handbook , is writer in residence at Benedictine College in Kansas and hosts The Extraordinary Story podcast about the life of Christ. A former reporter in the Washington, D.C., area, he served as press secretary of the U.S. House Ways & Means Committee Chairman and spent 10 years as executive editor of the National Catholic Register newspaper and Faith & Family magazine . His work frequently appears in Catholic publications such as Aleteia.org and the Register . He and his wife, April, have nine children and live in Atchison, Kansas.

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Lessons from the Presentation of Mary

My oldest child was baptized on the feast of the Presentation of Mary. I didn’t realize that that was the day’s feast at the time, because it fell on a Sunday that year (and the feast of Christ the King took precedent). I was delighted to realize that she was baptized on so fitting a feast.

The feast of the Presentation of Mary, recalls the tradition that, as a young child, Mary was presented to the temple by her parents, in order to be raised there. This, of course, calls to mind other instances in Scripture where a child is dedicated to God from a young age. The first to come to mind is the story of Samuel, whose mother, Hannah, prayed for a child and gratefully presented her son to the temple once he was weaned. Like Hannah, tradition holds that Sts. Anne and Joachim (the parents of Mary) prayed for a child for many years, before being given Mary.

The idea of presenting a toddler or preschooler to a temple to be raised sounds like abandonment to our modern ears. I remember the year that my oldest daughter turned three (the age that it is traditionally thought that Mary was entrusted to the temple). I took her to Mass on the feast of the Presentation of Mary that year, to celebrate the anniversary of her baptism. Suddenly, it hit me – this beautiful, funny, adorable little person in my arms was the same age that Mary was, when her parents presented her. My heart ached at the thought of having to give up my own sweet daughter at such a tender age, and I was grateful that it wasn’t necessary.

Certainly, the concept of entrusting a child to the temple sounds like abandonment. In a sense it is, but not in the sense that we may be thinking of. The child would have been well provided for in the temple, would not have wanted for food, clothing, shelter, or education. The parents certainly didn’t forsake the child. In fact, most images of the Presentation of Mary show the high priest of the temple eagerly waiting for her, with his arms wide open. Mary certainly would have been well cared for.

However, there is another sense of the word “abandonment.” In the spiritual tradition, when we speak of abandonment, we are referring to a complete and total entrusting of one to God’s love and providence. In this sense, what Anne and Joachim did was abandonment – total and utter abandonment to the will of God in the life of their daughter.

Another key feature of images of Mary’s Presentation is the willingness with which she entered the Temple. I have a toddler daughter of my own, and I can’t image her skipping up the steps of the church into the arms of a priest or nun (and her father works at a seminary, so she actually is friends with a number of priests and nuns!). She would certainly resist, and a parting like this would be traumatizing for both of us. But this isn’t the case for Mary. The tiny child shown in these images eagerly and peacefully looks up to the Temple. We don’t know exactly how Mary reacted to the parting with her parents, but this depiction of her makes perfect sense. This is she whose son would later say, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Of course she, too, would long to be close to God.

As a mother, I can only imagine how tremendously painful this would have been for Mary’s parents (especially her mother, who had probably only recently weaned her). Presenting Mary to the Temple was no small sacrifice on their part.

For my fellow parents, the inference is simple – do we relinquish our children to God’s plan for their lives? Or do we constantly try to conform them to our own desires? Are we willing to abandon our children to the work of God’s providence in their lives?

For all of us – parents and non-parents alike – there is an even stronger message. Do we long for God the way that Mary did? Do we find ourselves running and leaping up the steps of the Temple, or dragging our feet at the realization that doing so means time taken away from checking Facebook/tuning in to the football game/binging on a TV series on Netflix/sleeping an extra hour? I am fairly certain that Mary would have missed her parents. But I also am certain that she entered the Temple with joy. There is nothing wrong with browsing Facebook (or whatever your social media outlet of choice may be). There is nothing wrong with following your favorite sports team, or sleeping in on occasion, or relaxing with a good book and a mug of coffee or a glass of wine. Of course, there is nothing wrong with loving your children and not wanting to let go of them. There is, however, something wrong with loving each of these things more than God. There is something out of order when our longing for something else makes us less free to long for God.

What is preventing us from dancing up the steps of the Temple, into the arms of God?

image: Renata Sedmakova / Shutterstock.com

By Michele Chronister

Michele Chronister is a wife, and mother to three little girls and one little one in heaven. She received her BA and MA in theology from the University of Notre Dame (’09 and ’11). She is the author of a number of books, including Handbook for Adaptive Catechesis, the co-author of Faith Beginnings – Family Nurturing from Birth Through Preschool, editor of the book Rosaries Aren't Just for Teething, as well as an assortment of Catholic children's books. In addition to writing, she also homeschools her daughters, and is the social media manager for the Office of Natural Family Planning in the Archdiocese of St. Louis. When her oldest was a baby, she realized that their family life had taken on a sort of monastic rhythm – eat, pray, play, sleep. Prompted by this, she started the blog My Domestic Monastery ( www.mydomesticmonastery.com ), where she shares inspiration for families wanting to grow in holiness.

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The Presentation of Mary: Celebrating something that never happened

Alfonso Boschi/Public Domain via WikiPedia

Mary calls me back to where I most want to be: to the heart of God which, as you know, is also the heart of the world. She calls me to let the passion of Jesus become my passion and his glory to become my glory. She calls me to move beyond the dos and don’ts of the morally correct life into an intimacy with God where I can live the sadness, pain, and anguish of this world while already tasting the gladness, joy, and peace of the glorified Lord. —Henri Nouwen

Several years ago, I was attending daily Mass with a community of Benedictine monks. After making the Sign of the Cross and extending the greeting, the celebrant declared, “Today we are celebrating something that never happened.” It was November 21, the Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The name for this particular feast of Mary is based on a tradition found in the Protoevangelium of James . This is an early Christian text which was circulating at the end of the second century and which became enormously popular in the Middle Ages. “Protoevangelium” means “First Gospel” and in this text we find stories about events that took place before the birth of Jesus, and special attention is given to the birth and childhood of Mary. It is in this “gospel” that we find the names of Anne and Joachim, the parents of Mary. We also find many details surrounding the birth of Jesus that are absent from the gospels of Luke and Matthew.

According to the text, Mary was offered to God in the Temple by her grateful, aged parents when she was three years old. This was done to fulfill a vow that Anne had made when an angel appeared to her, telling her the she would become the mother of a child who “will be spoken of throughout the entire world” (Pr. James 4:1). When the appropriate time came, the child Mary was presented in the Temple and received by the priest, who blessed her, saying, “The Lord has made your name great for all generations. Through you will the Lord reveal his redemption to the children of Israel at the end of time” (7:2). The text goes on to describe how, when the priest set Mary on the third step of the altar, God cast his glance down upon her and she “danced on her feet, and the entire House of Israel loved her” (7:3).

The images of this quaint and unusual story remind us of Psalm 45:10-15:

Listen, my daughter, and understand: pay me careful heed. Forget your people and your father’s house, that the king might desire your beauty. He is your Lord: honor him, daughter of Tyre. All glorious is the king’s daughter as she enters, her raiment threaded with gold; in embroidered apparel she is led to the king. The maids of her train are presented to the king.

Despite the details provided by “James,” liturgists and Scripture scholars are quick to point out that the story of Mary’s presentation in the Temple is not based on actual events: there is no historical evidence that daughters were ever offered to God in the Temple (although firstborn sons were). And if we look at the readings and prayers that the Church uses in the liturgies for this celebration, we immediately notice that no mention is made of this story from the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James .

In fact, what we are celebrating each November 21 is the anniversary of the dedication of a church, St. Mary “the New,” in Jerusalem. Dedicated on November 21, 543, the church was located on the southern side of the Temple Mount. That original building was destroyed in 614 following the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem. Today, the Al-Aqsa Mosque stands on the site. Whatever its origin, this special celebration of Mary on November 21 is an official part of the Church’s prayer… so, what can we learn from the Memorial of the Presentation of Mary?

For centuries, members of certain religious communities have renewed their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience on this day, as a way of honoring the memory of the offering of Mary to the Lord’s service. As Saint Augustine says, “The blessed Mary certainly did the Father’s will, and so it was for her a greater thing to have been Christ’s disciple than to have been his mother, and she was more blessed in her discipleship than in her motherhood. Hers was the happiness of first bearing in her womb him whom she would obey as her master.”

Each of us, as members of the Church, can imitate Mary in this mystery. God has called all of us, in our baptism, to dedicate ourselves to lives of service through our work and prayer. And Mary, as the icon of a perfect disciple, is the model of obedience to God’s will. Remember—through her Fiat , her “let it be,” at the Annunciation—she set out on a path that took her away from the security of home, family, and tradition, into a life of service to the God whose handmaid she was to become. As Pope Francis has reflected, “She who was blessed because she believed, sees blossom from her faith a new future and awaits God’s tomorrow with expectation.” In the end, each of us, like Mary, must pray for the courage and faith to continue along the paths God has mapped out for us, if we are to become the kind of disciples we are called to be.

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The Presentation of Mary in the Temple

In the small chapel of St. Anne at Aylesford Priory there is a simple depiction of the Presentation of Mary in ceramics by Adam Kossowski. The chapel is dedicated as the Family Chapel. There are prayers for Grandparents noting their role of passing on their faith to future generations. There is also a very lively and colourful painting of the Presentation of Our Lady in our Church of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Faversham by Edward Ardizzone. 

We celebrate the Presentation of Mary in the Temple on 21 st November as the emperor Justinian had a new church built to Mary in the Temple area of Jeursalam dedicated on this date in 543. Though the church was destroyed by the Persians within the century, the feast day continued in the Eastern Church and became one of the important celebrations in honour of Mary. However, it was not until the Middle Ages that it was commemorated in the West. It has been celebrated in England since the fourteenth century.

What are we celebrating as there is no mention of the early life of Mary in the scriptures? The story of the Presentation of Mary has come down to us through one of the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James. This is one of the books that was not accepted into the canon of the Bible. This book tells of the meeting of Joachim and Anne at the Golden Gate of Jerusalem. They were childless for some years until an angel appeared to them and Anne gave birth to Mary. Anne and Joachim knew from the angel that this girl would be a sacred child with a special mission from God. Mary was taken to the temple by her parents to dedicate her to God. Though this story is a legend and has no foundation in history, nor was it the practice at the time to take children to dedicate them in the temple, the point of the story is that even in her childhood Mary was dedicated to God. St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) wrote that: “Mary conceived Jesus in her heart before she conceived Jesus in her womb”. The feast of the Presentation in the Eastern Church was as important as the Immaculate Conception is in the West. Both remind us that Mary was set apart by God from her conception.

The first reading for the Mass of Presentation of Mary is from the prophet Zechariah (2: 14-11-17). The prophet is writing at the time of the returning of the Babylonian exiles between 520-519 B.C. Jerusalem is the Daughter of Zion who sings and rejoices as the Lord is coming to be in their midst.  Some biblical scholars see Mary as the personification of the Daughter of Zion.  There was a refugee camp outside the northern wall of Jerusalem at Zion.  So, the association of Mary with the Daughter of Zion connects her with the poor, the lowly, the humble of heart and all those who wait patiently for God to deliver them.  The prophet breaks away from the narrow view of the past to write that many nations will gather to be God’s holy people.

The Gospel for that day comes from Matthew (12: 46-50). It is the meeting of Jesus with his mother and family members. This story also appears in both the Gospel of Mark (3: 31-35) and Luke (8: 19-21). While Mark’s account is harsh both Matthew and Luke soften their account of the encounter between Jesus and his family.

Jesus is speaking to a crowd when he is told that his mother and brothers are outside. Jesus tells the crowd: “My mother, brothers, and sisters are those who do the will of my Father in Heaven.”   Jesus is emphasising the difference between his physical and spiritual family. Mary was undoubtedly part of both as she was consecrated to God at her conception and became the first disciple of Jesus. 

This is an apt Gospel for the Presentation as Mary was a woman of faith from her early childhood and the will of the Father became the deepest of reality for the whole of her life and being. She was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit at the Annunciation; she stood at the foot of the cross and became a model of watchful prayer waiting with the apostles for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Mary is the model of the church in its perfection and as mother she watches over the Pilgrim Church with maternal love.

Fr. Francis Kemsley O.Carm 

Note: Shortly after writing this reflection the author, Fr Francis died (Oct 2023)  – Please keep him in your prayers.

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