A Meditation on Candlemas

Lift up your heads, you gates;

be lifted up, you ancient doors,

 that the King of glory may come in.

Psalm 24: 7

The Son of the Father is carried up the Mountain of the Lord to the Holy Temple by his Mary, his Virgin Mother and Joseph, Guardian of the Redeemer. Thirty three days after naming and circumcising him, the Holy Family sings to Zion's gates "lift high your heads.". Yes, Jesus passed through the walls of the Holy City just as he did through the gate of the Virgin's womb. The King is carried to his Father's House. At the Messiah's entry, Simeon and Anna trumpet Isaiah's prophecies about the Light of the Nations and the Glory of Israel, a canticle that still resounds. Under ancient shadows, the Image of the Invisible God redeems all redemption's rites. The innocence of sacrificed turtle doves reveal the hidden innocence of Christ purifying His Virgin Mother as a kind of the proto-chalice. For even an immaculate vessel must be purified after the holiness of God touches it. As prophets still declare the Infant Redeemer establishes a long awaited peace, Cherubim and Seraphim never cease to marvel over the Holy Family's pious obedience. And a silence echoes with the delight of the Father over the arrival of His Beloved Son.

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