A Great Nightly Prayer

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

    Every night, before a priest goes to bed, he prays the words that we heard in the Gospel today (albeit with slightly different wording): “Lord, now you let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled.  My own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people: a light to reveal you to the nations, and the glory of your people Israel.”  We call it in Latin the Nunc dimittis (so-called because the first two words in Latin are Nunc dimittis), or the Canticle of Simeon, since it was Simeon who prayed it in the temple, as Jesus was presented there by Mary and Joseph. 
    It’s not long, and easily memorized, and if you’re looking to add a prayer to your nightly prayer routine, it’s a great one to add.  But why does the Church have every priest (as well as bishops and men and women religious) pray this before they go to bed?
    The first sentence may make sense.  Remember that the Gospel told that us God the Holy Spirit had promised that Simeon that he wouldn’t “see death before he had seen the Christ [Messiah] of the Lord.”  Simeon is telling the Lord that He doesn’t have to keep Simeon alive anymore, because he has seen the Messiah, Jesus.  God has fulfilled His promise.  The same goes for the priest.  Throughout the day, God has fulfilled His promise, and the priest at the end of the day thanks God for His fidelity.
    The phrase, “go in peace” also probably reminds us of the phrase “rest in peace.”  Sleep is another Christian way of saying death, especially recognizing that death is not the end.  We don’t use this phrase much anymore, but we can speak of someone who has died as “falling asleep in the Lord.”  And let’s be honest, when we go to sleep, we hope we’re going to wake up the next morning, but we never know.  We might wake up before the judgement seat of God.  So this Canticle of Simeon reminds the priest that life ends, sometimes after many years, sometimes after a few years, and that the priest should always be ready for it.
    Simeon continues, “‘for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of every people.’”  Simeon was able to see Jesus, who is God’s salvation (Jesus’ Name means “God saves”).  He encounters or meets Jesus (the way that the Christian East refers to this feast), which is, for Simeon, the greatest gift, the gift he had waited so long to receive.
    So for the priest, each day he encounters Jesus.  The priest gets to hold Jesus in his hands as the priest confects the Eucharist at Mass.  He receives Jesus into His very self as he consumes the Body and Blood of Christ, so that Jesus is closer to the priest than any other person.  And that encounter with Jesus is the greatest gift the priest can receive, worth more than any treasure on earth.
    If you’ve been attentive (some days are harder than others to keep attentive during the homily), you’ve noticed that the priest prays this Canticle of Simeon each night before he goes to sleep because God has fulfilled His promises, as a reminder to keep death always before him, and because he has encountered Jesus.  But that’s true not only for the priest, but for all of God’s people (which is why the Canticle of Simeon is a good prayer for everyone to say each night).  Each day God fulfills His promises to be with each person, no matter what; to love each person, no matter what; to send grace each day sufficient for each person to be a saint.  Each day we all should keep death before us, remembering that life is fleeting, and the choices we make echo into eternity, for good or for ill.  Each day we all have the chance to encounter Jesus, not only in the Eucharist, but in God’s Word in the Bible, in our daily prayers, in the poor and marginalized, in co-workers and family member, maybe in annual retreats, and especially in the Eucharist. 
    Going back to God fulfilling His promises, priests don’t always have easy lives, the same as the rest of you.  As I know is also true for you, there are days for me where nothing seems to be going the way I want or planned, where everything things to be falling apart, and where life, frankly, stinks.  On those day in particular, it is important to still pray with Simeon and remember God’s fidelity even in the midst of pain, illness, stress, and failure. 
    So tonight, before you go to bed, I invite you to start a new habit of prayer, and join with bishops and priests, as well as consecrated men and women around the world, and pray the Canticle of Simeon, thanking God for his faithfulness, keeping death before our eyes, and remembering the times throughout the day that we encountered Jesus.  “Lord, now you let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled.  My own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people: a light to reveal you to the nations, and the glory of your people Israel.”

What Are You Doing?!?

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

            “What are you doing?!?”  Maybe some of you who are parents have had those words come out of your mouth, probably with more emotion than I just gave them.  More often than not an answer is not really necessary, as the sight of the child doing, well, what children do, often explains what exactly is going on.  Although, this phrase can also be used when we don’t understand what another person is doing.  I imagine the Wright Brothers had a lot of people ask them, “What are you doing?”

            We might have asked God that question when Jesus was presented in the temple, which is what we celebrate today on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.  After all, Jesus is God.  He doesn’t have to be presented to God in the temple.  And He certainly doesn’t need to follow the Mosaic Law, because He is not a subject of the Law, He is the giver of the Law.  And this prescription of the Law was given to the Chosen People as a way of having them participate in the redemption of the Passover.  Just as God passed over the houses and the Israelites and did not kill their firstborn sons because of the blood of the Passover lamb, so each male child was to be offered to the Lord, but instead of the child dying, the animals would take its place, as a vicarious sacrifice.  But Jesus did not need redeeming.  He was sinless, and so was not under the reality that St. Paul talks about, that the wages of sin is death.  So what was God doing?

            Well, as often happens when it comes to God, in one action God was doing a lot of things.  First, He was returning to the Temple built in His honor.  The presence of God, represented by the Ark of the Covenant, had been absent from the Temple since the Babylonian Exile, when Jeremiah had taken it away and hidden it somewhere on his way to Egypt.  But, as often happens when you hide something, you don’t quite remember where you put it.  And so, after the Jews returned from Babylon, even though they built the temple, there was no Ark of the Covenant to be there.  There are many theories where it was: some say it’s located beneath the rubble of the Temple that Nebuchadnezzar ordered destroyed; some say it made its way down to Ethiopia, to the Queen of Sheba, and has been kept safe by Ethiopian Orthodox priests since the time of Jesus; if you believe Hollywood, Indiana Jones found it and now it’s locked in a warehouse in some government facility.  But it was not in the temple.  And so, as Jesus is presented in the temple, the prophecy of Malachi is fulfilled: “And suddenly there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek, And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.”

            Secondly, God was fulfilling the promise He had made to Simeon, that Simeon would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s anointed, or, in Hebrew, Meshiach (Messiah).  Simeon, who had waited on the Lord, was now so glad that God made good on His word, that he broke into a prayer which has echoed on the lips of clergy, religious, and lay faithful throughout the centuries:

            Lord, now you let your servant go in peace,

            Your word has been fulfilled.

            My own eyes have seen the salvation

            which you have prepared in the sight of every people,

            A light to reveal you to the nations

            And the glory of your people, Israel.

In this way each member of the Church is invited, each night before he or she goes to sleep, to recall how God has been faithful to His promises, and has made salvation know, not only to the Jews, the Chosen People, but also to the nations, the Gentiles, as the darkness of sin is destroyed by the Light of Christ.  What a great way to end our day, by learning this short prayer and saying it each night before we go to bed as we recall the promises God has fulfilled to us!

            Thirdly, God was continuing to humble Himself.  In St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he says, “Jesus did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at.  Rather, he humbled himself and took the form of a slave.”  Jesus, through He is the Lawgiver, submits to the law, setting before us a beautiful example of obedience.  Obedience is certainly not a popular virtue.  But Jesus shows us that obedience to God always is the recipe for freedom with others and ourselves.

            Even as God re-enters His Temple in the Person of Jesus, we also know that at the crucifixion the veil of the Temple is ripped in two by the power of God, and God establishes Christ as the Temple not made by hands but destroyed by human hands, but raised up and rebuilt by God.  And Christ makes living temples of those who are joined to Him in Baptism.  We become the place where God dwells.  We become the place where Jesus is presented as we receive His Body and Blood into our very body in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.  We become lights in the Light that is meant to scatter the darkness of sin and enlighten others to the joy, freedom, and peace of following Jesus and living according to His law of love.  Jesus is about to enter into your temple.  May the Light of the World find your heart a welcome home, and then give you the courage to share that light with others.