Marian Thoughts – 17 May – ‘Mary’s Month’ – Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter, C
Mini Series – Pope Francis and the Holy Rosary
“Praying the Rosary together as a family,
s very beautiful and it gives us strength.”
Pope Francis
The Fourth Joyful Mystery: The Presentation
Forty days after Christmas, we celebrate the Lord who enters the temple and comes to encounter His people.
In the Christian East, this feast is called the “Fest of Encounter” – it is the encounter between God, who became a child, to bring newness to the world and an expectant humanity, represented by the elderly man and woman in the Temple.
In the Temple, there is also an encounter between two couples – the young Mary and Joseph and the elderly Simeon and Anna. The old receive from the young, while the young draw upon the old. In the Temple, Mary and Joseph find the roots of their people. This is important, because God’s promise does not come to fulfilment, merely in individuals, once for all but within a community and throughout history. There too, Mary and Joseph find the roots of their faith, for faith is not something learned from a book but the art of living with God, learned from the experience of those who have gone before us. The two young people, in meeting the two older people, thus find themselves. And the two older people, nearing the end of their days, receive Jesus, the meaning of their lives. This event, fulfils the prophecy of Joel: “Your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions” (2:28).
In this encounter, the young see their mission and the elderly realise their dreams.
All because, at the centre of the encounter, is Jesus … May we never look at the screen of our cell phone more than the eyes of our brothers or sisters or focus more on our software, than on the Lord….Pope Francis 2018
AnaStpaul 