Luke 2,22-40 – Presentation of the Lord – Feast
Today the liturgy makes us remember the Presentation of the Lord. Luca gives us an apparently simple, almost modest scene. Mary and Joseph enter the Temple not as protagonists but as believers, carrying in their arms a child like so many others. They do nothing extraordinary: they obey the Law, they perform an expected gesture, they fit into a tradition that precedes them. Nevertheless it is precisely within this normality that God chooses to reveal himself.
Faith, the Gospel seems to suggest, is not seeking the exceptional but recognizing the essential. Jesus is presented, that is, offered, and this gesture says that true love does not hold back but delivers. A child is never a possession, it is an entrusted promise. Simeon and Anna represent humanity that knows how to wait without resignation. They haven’t stopped hoping and that’s why they can see. Simeon takes that child and pronounces words that are not born of enthusiasm but of faithfulness: “My eyes have seen your salvation, prepared by you before all the people: light to reveal you to the people and glory of your people Israel”.
The light doesn’t make any noise. And for us Christians, light is not an abstract idea, it has a concrete, fragile face that asks to be welcomed. But welcoming this light also means accepting that love does not spare us the experience of feeling vulnerable because of it. Mary is told: “And a sword will pierce your soul too.” Those who truly love expose themselves. Faith, like love, is not a protection from suffering but a new way of living it. Offer, wait, recognize, cherish: they are silent verbs, but salvation passes within them.
