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.”

Entrusting our Family to God

Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

Last week my sister and brother-in-law celebrated their 9th wedding anniversary.  I remember the day of their wedding pretty clearly: I wasn’t a priest or even a deacon yet, so I was in charge of cantoring the Mass; there was lots of snow on the ground, but it was about 50 degrees, so it was very foggy; there were 5 priests concelebrating the wedding (including now-Bishop Raica, now-Msgr. Vincke, two priests from the Diocese of Lansing and one from the Archdiocese of Detroit; perks, I guess of having a seminarian for a brother, and a dad who works for a parish in DeWitt).

I also remember, a little more than 5 years ago, when they told us that they were pregnant with their first daughter, Evelyn.  I remember wondering how my mom would take being a grandmother, because, generally, grandma is a word that is associated with those who are a bit more mature (a kind way of saying older), and I wasn’t sure my mom was ready for the very real and public acknowledgment that she was, in fact, more mature.  But, I couldn’t have been more wrong!  My mom was very excited to be a grandmother, and she has loved spending her time with her two granddaughters, my niece Evelyn and my niece and goddaughter Adelaide.

We heard in our first reading and our second reading about Abraham becoming a father with his wife, Sarah, for the first time, at an age which would be described as really mature (that is, really old).  And God fulfills His promise to Abraham through Isaac, who is the beginning of the descendants of Abraham more numerous than the stars in the sky.  Abraham must have wondered if God was going to fulfill His promise, but Abraham trusted in God to be true to His word, and it happened.  And that trust was put to the test when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac.  Of course, God stayed Abraham’s hand before he could complete the sacrifice, but even then, Abraham trusted that God could raise from the dead an heir as we hear in the Letter to the Hebrews.  Of course, the author to the Letter to the Hebrews, traditionally St. Paul, sees in Isaac and Abraham a foreshadowing of Jesus, whose Father, God, did not stay the executioner’s hand, but let His Son be sacrificed so that we could go to heaven.

And that’s where our Gospel comes in.  Even as an infant, being offered to the Lord as the firstborn by the sacrifice of two doves, Jesus’ destiny is set.  Simeon, the just man, awaiting the Messiah, sees Jesus and knows that God has, again, been faithful, in not letting Simeon see death until he saw the Messiah.  But he also prophesies that Mary, Jesus’ mother, will have her heart pierced by sorrow, which is certainly the case when Mary had to watch her own Son die, naked on the cross.  

Children are, more often than not, the fruit of family life.  In fact, in order to be married, you have to be open to children (unless you’re past childbearing age).  It’s one of the goods of marriage, and even for those who are of childbearing age who cannot conceive, adoption is a great way of having children.  In either case, having or adopting a child should be the response to God’s will for a husband and wife.  Look what happened to Abraham when he tried to take God’s promise into his own hand: he and his slave, Hagar, conceived Ishmael (Sarah at first said it was ok, but then mysteriously changed her mind after Abraham started spending a lot of time with Ishmael).  When we try to replace God’s plan with our own plan, it tends to mess things up.  And we know, by what Jesus has said through His Church, that natural conception or adoption are the only good ways to bring a child into the world.  Sometimes, yes, that conception has to be helped by hormone treatments or vitamin supplements.  But when processes like in vitro fertilization are used, or when people decide they have a right to have a child on their terms, and not as part of God’s plan, our relationship with God is damaged by the sinful means or by selfish desires.  Children, no matter how they are conceived, are always blessings.  But we always want to be sure that the way we welcome a new life into a family is according to God’s plan, and not only according to our plan.

Instead, the Lord invites us to entrust our families to Him.  And that goes not only for how to welcome a new child in the family, but even before that.  The Church requires that Catholics get married in a Catholic Church, or get a dispensation from the local bishop from that requirement, because as a new family is formed, the Church wants to make sure that God is a part of that decision and is involved in the life of the new family.  And when that family, by natural conception or adoption, brings a new child into the picture, then the family is also invited to help that child with the life of faith by having the child baptized and living out that faith daily with the child.  This means going to Mass each Sunday (don’t worry if the baby or little child acts up or is noisy; it’s what kids do); praying at home before meals and sometime during the day or night (for me it was usually right before bed); showing unconditional love and forgiveness to the best of our ability; treating others as we want to be treated and as we would treat Jesus.  All of those things go into making a family holy, like the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  And that all starts by trusting God, by having faith in God and His plan, just like Abraham did.  We sin, and we mess up, when we take matters into our own hands, as Abraham himself did a few times.  But God invites us to trust in Him always, and so find salvation for ourselves and our families.