The missing link

 An audio version of today's gospel and reflection can be accessed here.

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Today’s gospel (Luke 2: 33-35) gives us a brief moment in the lives of Mary and Joseph but one in which Jesus takes centre stage, identified as Saviour by the words of Simeon who is, so to speak, the last but one prophet of the Old Testament, followed only by John the Baptist. Yet, as brief as the moment is, how many truths these lines contain.

First, we have a glimpse into the interior lives of Joseph and Mary for, as Saint Luke tells us, they marvelled at what was said about the child. One of the fundamental virtues that they both exercised throughout their lives was the virtue of faith, utterly necessary insofar as the immense prophecies that surrounded their son were often contradicted by the difficult and thankless circumstances in which they often found themselves. Faith was the virtue that Saint Elizabeth most praised in Mary for she was blessed in having believed the words that had been spoken to her.

Next, we hear the words of Simeon's prophecy about the role Jesus would play in the life of Israel. Here, we must understand Israel both in a concrete and in a spiritual sense, in the sense both of His own people and of the spiritual Israel constituted by His mystical body:

Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed.

Why is this so? Why is not everything done and finished, indeed accomplished, with the action of Jesus alone? Quite simply because redemption is not yet salvation; quite simply because, as paradoxical as it is, there is something lacking in the sufferings of Christ, as Saint Paul tells the Colossians. There is a portion to be made-up, and that portion is seen in our transformation in Christ by which we become the adopted children of the Father and bear the duties of the First Born with a true co-responsibility. To be a Christian is not simply to profess His name and recognise Him as our personal Lord and Saviour; if that were sufficient, than, all those who say Lord, Lord would indeed enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

More is needed. The rise and fall of many in Israel will come about because some will follow Him into death and resurrection, and some will choose not to. Some will recognise that the mystery of His passion and His glory must become their own mystery, and some will not. Some will accept that their own story must be written into His story, and some will not. And This is why He is opposed. We should not be surprised at those who reject Him, and neither should we despair; God alone keeps the secret of all hearts. This is the mystery of iniquity, and we have been warned to expect it.

Lastly, this gospel draws back a curtain on the extraordinary mystery of how Mary herself enters the passion and resurrection of her Son. At the wedding feast of Cana, Jesus asks her directly:

What is that to you and me? My hour has not yet come.

In other words, what Simeon's prophecy anticipates – the piercing of Mary’s heart by a sword - is in fact Mary's vocation to be associated with Jesus in the fall and the rise of Israel. How could we doubt that in this prophecy we hear Mary's personal vocation: not her active vocation to mother the Saviour of humanity, but her personal vocation that means of all human creatures she is the one most closely associated with the hour of the Saviour.

And this too is why the purpose of the piercing of her heart is that the thoughts of many may be revealed. For in our personal vocations, that particular dimension of the inexhaustible beauty of God which He has appointed to us to reflect is shown forth to the world. In this moment, Mary is shown not only as His mother but also as the spouse of the Holy Spirit, the human creature who is drawn most deeply into God's outpouring of Himself: in His creation, in His work of redemption, and now down the ages of the Church in His work of sanctification.

Jesus is the bridge maker but Mary is the bridge head: His first conquest, His greatest masterpiece, and His most intimate cooperator, working then, and even now, to make up in her own sufferings, her own sorrows, the sufferings that are lacking to the passion of Christ for the sake of His body, the Church.