The Purification of Our Lady

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

When the day came for them to be purified, in keeping with the Law of Moses, they took Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord. The Mosaic Law prescribed not only the offering up of the firstborn male but also the purification of the mother. Mary was not obliged by this law since she was most pure, having conceived her Son in a miraculous manner.

But Our Lady never sought to get out of social obligations. St. Bernard wrote, “Don’t you think that Our Lady could have complained and said, ‘What need have I of purification? Why should the authorities block my entrance into the temple when my womb has been turned into the temple of the Holy Spirit? Why can’t I go to the temple when I’ve brought to life the Lord of the temple?

“There has been nothing impure, nothing illicit, nothing to purify in this conception and this birth. This Child is the source of all purity. He has come to purify us from our sins. What then is there to purify in me when he has made me most pure in this immaculate birth?” (Bernard of Clairvaux, Homily on the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary).

Nevertheless, as in so many instances, Our Lady chose to act like any other Jewish woman of the time. She wanted to be an example of obedience and humility.

Our Lady had the humility to avoid drawing any attention to herself for the wonderful graces that God had bestowed on her. Even though she was the Mother of God, or perhaps because of that fact, she went to the temple just like any other woman. She guarded within her heart the treasures she had received from God.

Mary could have asked for special treatment. She would have definitely been more than entitled to it. But she prefers to teach us how to pass unnoticed among our contemporaries with our hearts on fire with love of God. Mary encourages us to live our lives as ordinary citizens, exercising the same rights and duties shared by our contemporaries.

Today we contemplate Mary on this her feast, the Fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary. We see Mary most pure as she submits to an obligation which she could have avoided. We look at our own behavior. How many times have we sought special treatment? How many times have we shown ingratitude to the love of God?

St. Josemaría has written, “You and I surely do need purification! Atonement, and more than atonement, Love. —Love as a searing iron to cauterize our souls’ uncleanness, and as a fire to kindle with divine flames the wretched tinder of our hearts” (Josemaría Escrivá, Holy Rosary, Fourth Joyful Mystery). This is the presentation we have to make to God through Our Lady.

The prophet Malachi says, “And presently the Lord whom you seek, and the angel of the testament whom you desire, shall come to his temple. … For he is like a refining fire, and like the fuller’s herb: and he shall sit refining and cleansing the silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and shall refine them as gold, and as silver, and they shall offer sacrifices to the Lord in justice” (Mal. 3:1–3).

“The liturgy represents and makes present again a ‘mystery’ of Christ’s life: in the Temple, the religious center of the Jewish nation, in which animals were continually being sacrificed to be offered to God, there he makes his first entry, humble and modest, he who, according to the prophecy of Malachi, will sit as ‘a refiner and purifier,’ in particular of persons consecrated to worship and to service of God.

“There he makes his first entry into the Temple, he who ‘had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people’ (Heb. 2:17)” (John Paul II, Homily, Point 2, February 2, 1981).

Jesus comes to purify us from our sins by means of pardon and mercy.

This prophecy refers directly to the priests of the tribe of Levi. These priests prefigure all Christians who through Baptism become members of the royal priesthood of Christ.

If we allow ourselves to be cleansed and purified, we too can offer up our work and our lives in justice.

Today is a feast day of Our Lord who, despite His infancy, is “a light of revelation to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32).

John Paul II has liked to say, “It is also a feast of Our Lady. She carries the Child in her arms. He, even in her hands, is the light of our souls, the light which illumines the darkness of knowledge and of human existence, of the intellect and of the heart.

“The thoughts of so many hearts are revealed when her mother’s hands carry this great divine Light, when they bring it closer to man” (John Paul II, Homily, Point 3, February 2, 1979).

Our Lady wants to encourage us that we purify our hearts, that we make the offering of ourselves pleasing to God, that we find Christ in all the circumstances of our everyday existence. She wanted to go through with this required rite of purification, even though she didn’t have to do it, because she wanted to give us a high regard for the purification of our souls.

From the earliest days of Christianity, the Fathers of the Church have written of Our Lady’s purity in glowing terms. Pope Pius XII says they have called her “an iris among spines, Immaculate Virgin, forever blessed, free of all contagion of sin, tree of everlasting life, fountain most pure, free from all sin, more beautiful than beauty itself, holier than all sanctity, more exalted than all the angels and saints” (cf. Pius XII, Encyclical, Fulgens corona, Point 9, September 8, 1953).

Our Lady’s immaculate life is like a call for us to throw off whatever separates us from Our Lord.

St. Josemaría in The Forge says: “Ask the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and your Mother, to make you know yourself and weep for all those foul things that have passed through you, and which, alas, have left such dregs behind. …

”—And at the same time, without wishing to stop considering all that, say to him: Jesus, give me a Love that will act like a purifying fire in which my miserable flesh, my miserable heart, my miserable soul, my miserable body may be consumed and cleansed of all earthly wretchedness. And when I have been emptied of myself, fill me with yourself. May I never become attached to anything here below. May Love always sustain me” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 41).

We can offer everything we are through the hands of Our Lady. We can turn to her particularly in times of trial.

St. Paul writes, “But we carry this treasure in vessels of clay, to show that the abundance of the power is God’s and not ours” (cf. 2 Cor. 4:7). A vessel of clay can be broken rather easily. It can also be put together again without too much trouble. Within the merciful plans of the Lord, there is a remedy for every kind of damage.

The Lord only asks that we be humble, that we go to Him in sacramental Confession when necessary, that we have a firm resolve to sin no more. Our small and not-so-small weaknesses can be an excellent opportunity for us to increase our desires for reparation. Whenever we hurt someone we love, we can do our best to make up for the harm done. This is the way we should feel about hurting Jesus.

John Paul I said, “If children are ill, they have additional claim to be loved by their mother. And we too, if by chance we are sick with badness, on the wrong track, have yet another claim to be loved by the Lord” (John Paul I, Angelus, September 10, 1978).

We can have a great sense of peace when we contemplate all the abundant supernatural means which God has placed at our disposal for penance and purification. He has given Himself to us in the Blessed Eucharist to serve as a most powerful spiritual food. He has given us the sacrament of Confession so that when we fall, we might find forgiveness and return to the struggle. He has given us our guardian angel to guard us along the way.

We can also find support in our brothers in the faith through the Communion of Saints. We can learn from the good example of so many practicing Christians around us.

In a very special way we’re able to count on the help of Our Lady, Mother of God and Our Mother. We can have recourse to her on a regular basis, but especially when we feel worn out or a bit overwhelmed.

Meditating on today’s feast, St. Alphonsus Liguori explained Our Lady’s power with the use of a legend from antiquity. “Plutarch relates that Antipater wrote to Alexander the Great a long letter of accusations against Olympias, the mother of Alexander. Having read the letter he answered: ‘Does not Antipater know that one tear of my mother is enough to cancel an endless number of letters of accusation?’”

St. Alphonsus takes these noble words and puts them on the lips of Jesus: “Does not Lucifer know that one prayer of my mother, in favor of a sinner, is enough to make me forget all the accusations of offenses committed against me?”

He adds: “St. Simeon received a promise from God that he should not die until he had seen the Messiah born. … But he did not receive this grace except by means of Mary, for he did not see the Savior until he saw him in the arms of Mary. Hence, whoever wishes to find Jesus will not find him except through Our Lady. Let us go then to this divine Mother if we wish to find Jesus, and let us go with great confidence” (Alphonsus Liguori, Glories of Mary).

Our Lady is there for us also as the Health of the Sick and will gladly obtain for us the well-being of our bodies, especially when alleviation of our sickness is ordered to the good of our soul.

At other times she grants something more important than bodily health: the grace to understand that suffering, including physical pain, is an instrument of God. Permitting it, He wants us to accept it with love, and will transform it into a great good that purifies us and enables us to obtain countless benefits for the whole Church.

By means of sickness borne patiently and with a supernatural outlook, we obtain a good part of the treasure that awaits us in heaven, to say nothing of abundant apostolic rewards: from such humble and courageous acceptance of God’s will come decisions to dedicate oneself to God and to the salvation of many souls who, without those graces, might not find the path and the gateway to heaven.

Our Lady also cures the wounds left in our soul by original sin and aggravated by our personal transgressions. She will obtain remedy for our disordered concupiscence and procure strength for our weakness in doing good. She fortifies those who are wavering, raises the fallen, helps to dispel the mists of ignorance and the darkness of error.

She’s also the Refuge of Sinners. In her we find a safe harbor from the storm. After her Son, no one detests sin more than Mary does, but she does not reject sinners. Instead she welcomes them and moves them to repentance. In how many Confessions has she intervened by means of a special help?

She transmits the grace of light and repentance even to those who are far away; if they do not resist, they are led by her from grace to grace and finally to conversion.

“St. Paul says to the Ephesians: ‘Who then will be able to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth’ (Eph. 3:18) of your mercy, O Virgin most blessed? It reaches forward, extending even as far as the end of time, to help all those that invoke it. Its breadth is as broad as the vast universe, so that of you too it can be said, ‘the whole earth is full of your mercy’ (Ps. 33:5)” (Bernard of Clairvaux, Homily on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary).

We can turn to Our Lady today, imploring her to have pity on us. We can tell her that we are sinners, but that we want to love her Son Jesus more and more. We can ask her to have compassion on our weaknesses and to help us overcome them.

She is there for our safeguard, the secure haven where we can drop anchor, sheltered from the waves and tempestuous winds. There we can refit, putting right any damage caused by temptation and our human frailty. The mercy she mediates is our protection and our peace.

Throughout her life, Our Lady must have been a source of consolation and support to anyone afflicted by a weight too heavy to bear alone. She must have encouraged St. Joseph on that night in Bethlehem when, as he explained the pressing need for lodging at one house after another, he found that no door would open to them. One smile from Our Lady would be enough for him to find the strength to get ready and make the most of what he had found—a stable on the outskirts of the little town (cf. Luke 2:7).

She would have been a tower of strength to him in that flight into Egypt and in helping him set himself up in that country (cf. Matt. 2:13-15). Joseph himself was a man of fortitude, but it would have been easier for him to do what he must to fulfill the will of God when he was sustained and encouraged by Our Lady.

Her neighbors in Nazareth would always find upliftment and understanding in the words of Mary. The Apostles found refuge in Mary’s company when all had turned dark and meaningless after the death of Christ on the Cross. When they returned from placing the body of Jesus in the sepulcher, at a time when families in Jerusalem were getting ready to celebrate the Paschal feast, the Apostles, who had fled numb with shock and disoriented, turned almost automatically to Our Lady.

From then on she has never ceased to comfort those who are oppressed by sorrow. One writer says, “She has sheltered innumerable Christians from persecution, freed many souls possessed by the devil or besieged by temptations, saved countless imperiled supplicants from anxiety. She has strengthened and helped many of the dying by reminding them as they lay on their deathbeds of the infinite merits of her Son” (Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Mother of the Savior).

If ever our life has become for us a misery and we are overwhelmed by apparently insoluble difficulties, crushed by illness, daunted by seeming failure in our dedication to an apostolic task, if we are threatened by discouragement in the effort to bring up our family and dismayed at the obstacles that just keep on piling up, let us turn to Mary. We will always find solace, encouragement, and the strength to fulfill the lovable will of her Son.

We can slowly repeat to her: Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy. Hail our life, our sweetness and our hope. From her we shall learn to console and to hearten others in the struggle. We shall be compassionate on those who are in need of our help, in disasters, or in minor worries—people in need of encouragement here, or of condolence there—a merciful attitude which is so pleasing to Our Lord.

Our Lady is Help of Christians because, first of all, we favor those we love, and nobody has a greater love than Mary for those who belong to her Son’s family. In her we will find every grace we need to win through in the fight against temptation, in our apostolate, and in our work.

In the Rosary we have a “powerful weapon” (J. Escrivá, Holy Rosary, Foreword) with which to overcome all the obstacles we shall meet along the way.

Following the constant teaching of the Roman Pontiffs, many Christians throughout the world have made the daily Rosary a part of their life of piety. They recite it together as a family prayer, or alone in a church, while walking in the street, or traveling in any form of transport.

St. Josemaría says, quoting Ecclesiastes, “‘In me is to be found every grace of doctrine and of truth, every hope of life and of virtue’ (Sir. 24:25). How wise the Church has been to put these words on Our Mother’s lips so that we Christians do not forget them. She is our safety, the Love that never fails, the refuge ever open to us, the hand ever ready to caress and console” (J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 279).

Let us ask Our Lady to cleanse and purify our hearts on this feast of her Purification. We place ourselves, Mother, in your motherly hands so that you might offer us to Jesus.

Holy Father, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer Jesus, your beloved Son, to you. I offer myself to you through Him and with Him, in the name of all your creatures.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.