First Reading: Malachi 3:1-4

Second Reading: Hebrews 2:14-18

Gospel: Luke 2:22-40

 

When Mary and Joseph brought Jesus in fulfilment of the prescriptions of the law, Simeon, guided by the Holy Spirit, took our Lord in his arms and broke out in a hymn of blessing and praise. “My eyes”, he said, “have seen your salvation. a light for revelation to the Gentiles”. 

 

Simeon not only saw, but was privileged to hold in his arms the long-awaited hope, Our Saviour, his Saviour, which filled him with exultation. His heart rejoiced because God had come to dwell among his people; he felt his presence in the flesh. 

 

Today’s liturgy tells us that in that rite, the Lord, forty days after his birth, “outwardly was fulfilling the Law, but in reality, he was coming to meet his believing people” (Roman Missal, 2 February, Introduction to the Entrance Procession). This encounter of God with his people brings joy and renews hope.

 

Simeon’s canticle is the hymn of the believer, who at the end of his days can exclaim: “It is true, hope in God never disappoints” (cf. Rm 5:5). God never deceives us. Simeon and Anna, in their old age, were capable of a new fruitfulness, and they testify to this in song. 

 

Life is worth living in hope, because the Lord keeps his promise. Our Lord Jesus Christ himself will later explain this promise in the synagogue of Nazareth: the sick, prisoners, those who are alone, the poor, the elderly and sinners, all are invited to take up this same hymn of hope. The Word of God is with them, Jesus, the Son of God, is with us.

 

We have inherited this hymn of hope from our elders. They made us part of this process. In their faces, in their lives, in their daily sacrifice we were able to see how this praise was embodied. 

 

We are heirs to the dreams of our elders, heirs to the hope that did not disappoint our founding mothers and fathers, our older brothers and sisters. We are heirs to those who have gone before us and had the courage to dream. 

 

Like them, we too want to sing, “God does not deceive; hope in him does not disappoint”. God comes to meet his people. And we want to sing by taking up the prophecy of Joel and making it our own. 

 

We do well to take up the dreams of our elders, so that we can prophesy in our day and once more encounter what originally set our hearts afire. Dreams and prophecies together. The remembrance of how our elders, our fathers and mothers, dreamed, and the courage prophetically to carry on those dreams. 

 

Let us accompany our Savior Jesus Christ as he goes forth to meet his people, to be in the midst of us. Let us go forth, not with the complaining or anxiety of those who have forgotten how to prophesy because they failed to take up the dreams of their elders, but with serenity and songs of praise. Not with apprehension but with the patience of those who trust in the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Lord of dreams and prophecy. In this way, let us share what is truly our own: the hymn that is born of hope.