Feast of the Presentation of the Lord 2025

 
Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles 
 
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
February 2, 2025
 
My brothers and sisters in Christ,^[1]
 
Today we remember the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, which took place 40 days after the Lord was born on Christmas.
 
I love that this Feast was first called “the Encounter” in the early Church. That’s a great name. The Encounter of Jesus and his people.
 
It is a humble, ordinary scene that we see in our Gospel today. A mother and her husband come to the Temple to present their newborn child to God. It’s a scene that’s not much different than the way parents today bring their child to be baptized in our time.
 
And it was something that was common for every first-born son of Jewish people. It was the custom under the law of Moses, for parents to consecrate their firstborn boy to God, 40 days after the child was born.
 
Yet in this event of Jesus’ consecration, we have an “encounter” with the living God.
 
This is what we heard in the first reading from today’s Mass, from the prophet Malachai: “And suddenly there will come to the temple, the Lord whom you seek, and the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.”
 
I like the word “suddenly.”. Suddenly, we are surprised to meet Jesus! Suddenly, in this Child we have an encounter with the Lord!
 
It is a beautiful thing to meet Jesus. The encounter with Jesus changes the whole direction of our lives. So today we especially ask for the grace to renew our encounter with Jesus, with Christ. We ask for the grace to give glory to God in everything we do, in everything we think.
 
My dear brothers and sisters, every one of us is called to “present ourselves” to God, to dedicate ourselves completely to Jesus Christ, following him in love and seeking his will for our lives and our world.
 
That is what this beautiful feast we celebrate today is all about.
 
And as we heard, the holy man in the temple, St. Simeon, recognizes that Jesus is not just any ordinary child. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, he is able to understand that Jesus is the One whom all the world has been waiting for, the living God and the true face of humanity.
 
It is a beautiful, again, powerful scene, as Simeon takes the baby Jesus into his arms and blesses God.
 
And he says: “My eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.”
 
So my dear brothers and sisters, practically speaking, the Feast of the Presentation is another “epiphany,” another revelation of who Jesus Christ really is.
 
And in the light of his presence, once again he manifests to us the beautiful possibilities of our lives as children of God.
 
So the feast today shows us that our God is the God of encounter, the God who comes from the heavens to be near to us, who comes down to join his life to our life in love. This is the beautiful reality of the Incarnation, of Jesus coming to be with us.
 
Today’s second reading, from the Letter to the Hebrews, tells us that Jesus came to share in our “blood and flesh,” that he “had to become like his brothers and sisters in every way,” except for sin.^[2]
 
Isn’t that a beautiful gift that God gives to us!
 
Jesus Christ is the King of glory and the Lord of hosts! And yet he comes to share in our human reality, as a brother, as a friend.
 
And because our human reality includes pain and suffering and death, Jesus shares in those things as well. He loves us so much that he suffered death to purify us and set us free from sin, selfishness, and death.
 
And in baptism, my brothers and sisters, we give ourselves to Jesus.
 
We can think of baptism as our own “presentation” to the Lord. When we present ourselves for baptism, we join our lives to his life, we offer our lives to him as a “present.” We give ourselves as a gift to him, just as he gave his life as a gift for us, for each one of us.
 
So, on this great feast, let us renew our own presentation to the Lord. 
 
Let us live with new wonder and amazement at the gift of Jesus, and let us dedicate ourselves again to serving him with our lives, carrying the light of Christ into the world. Just as we were carrying our candles, we are called to carry the light of Christ into the world, and sharing the warmth of God’s love with everyone.
 
Jesus, humble and little, allowed himself to be held in the arms of his Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
 
Let us ask for that same humility today, to humble ourselves as children in the arms of our Blessed Mother. And as she presented her Son to God, may she help each of us to present our lives to God, as well.