Every year, on 2 February, the Orthodox faithful celebrate the Presentation of the Lord. The feast remembers the presentation of Infant Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem, 40 days after His birth, as the Judaic tradition stipulated.
His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel explained the significance of the feast after the Divine Liturgy celebrated in the chapel of “Saint Gregory the Enlightener” of the Patriarchal Residence.
“The moment he received Infant Jesus, Messiah, in his armes, Righteous Simeon exclaimed in prayer: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismissyour servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles,and the glory of your people Israel.”
This prayer of Righteous Simeon entered the rite of our Church. It is a prayer of relief after long expectation. Righteous Simeon saw with his eyes what the prophets has predicted, namely the God made man out of love for humans and for their salvation. Thus, this feast of the Presentation of the Lord is a feast that shows us that God keeps His promise. So, all the expectation of Messiah in the Old Testament is based on the renewed promise. It is the promise that God will send a Saviour to Israel”, His Beatitude said.
Today’s feast is an invitation to meeting Christ in our life, the Patriarch of Romania also underlined.
“This feast is very great and it is an occasion to remember that all our life we are called, just like Righteous Simeon, to receive, to meet Christ in our soul and in our house, and this is done especially when we listen to the words of the Gospel and when we communicate ourselves with the Holy Sacraments, when we receive the priest who blesses our house. All this means our meeting Christ and when we communicate ourselves with Him in the Holy Divine Eucharist Christ meets us in the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is given to us as a foretaste even since we live in this world. This is the great joy to be Christian, to meet Christ, to be received in faith and be met by Christ with the joy of holiness and of salvation”, the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church also said.
The event which makes the theme of the feast of the Presentation of the Lord is mentioned in the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke the Apostle. 40 days after His birth, Saviour Jesus Christ is brought to the Temple by Virgin Mary and Joseph to accomplish the rite of the Old Law. He is met in the Temple by Righteous Simeon and Prophetess Ana. Saint Luke describes Simeon as a faithful righteous man who observed the rite of the Old Law. When Righteous Simeon met Christ and held the Infant whom God sent to incarnate, to be made man and become the Saviour of the world, he felt the joy of the fulfilment of the promise of God, an inner spiritual relief, and he thanked God with the prayer Dismiss your servant… mentioned in Luke 2:25-26.
