top of page
  • srelioramj

Purified?

Taken from pfsgm meditations on the Presentation

"When the days were completed

for their purification...

they took him up to Jerusalem

to present him to the Lord..."

(Luke 2:22)


It is natural enough that Mary and Joseph, as observant Jews, would formally present the Firstborn to the Lord (cf. Ex 13:2), but that detail about the purification seems a bit strange. After all, Mary is sinless, Jesus is God, and Joseph is "a righteous man" (Matt 1:19) – so why would the Holy Family, of all families, have to go through a procedure to be "purified?"


Here, as always, Mary and Joseph are teaching us something important. Where do they go to perform the rite of purification? To the house of God – at that time, the Jewish Temple. Where do we have to go to be totally purified from our sins? To the house of God – which, as St. Paul tells us, is now the Church (1Tim 3:15).


In order to be purified of our sins, we have to “present” ourselves "at the Church:" to confess with a Catholic priest.


This "ministry of reconciliation" (cf. 2Cor 5:18), after all, is the first gift Jesus gave His apostles after His resurrection: He no sooner appears among them Alive, in the locked room, than He bestows on them the power to share that Life with those who are still dead in their sins (cf. Eph 2:1). "He breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained'" (John 20:22-23). That power of forgiveness, the regenerating power of the grace of God – passed down from generation to generation in the Church (cf. Eph 3:21), from the apostles until today – is as close to us right now as the nearest confessional.


And perhaps there is no better present we can make to the Lord, in preparation for the celebration of Christmas, and in return for the gift He made of Himself to us, than to let Him free us from our sins through the ministry of a priest!


“[To] ensure more rapid progress day by day in the path of virtue...the pious practice of frequent confession…should be earnestly advocated. By it genuine self-knowledge is increased, Christian humility grows, bad habits are corrected, spiritual neglect and tepidity are resisted, the conscience is purified, the will strengthened, a salutary self-control is attained, and grace is increased in virtue of the Sacrament itself. Let those, therefore, …who make light of or lessen esteem for frequent confession realize that what they are doing is alien to the Spirit of Christ and disastrous for the Mystical Body of our Savior.” (Ven. Pius XII)
 

Advent challenge: go to confession this week.


Image: A Light to the Gentiles, Greg Olsen

36 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page