The Presentation at the Altar

Today is the feast day of the Presentation of our Lord Jesus in the Temple. We also call this feast as “Candelaria” because people bring candles to church to be blessed.

The Presentation

I brought a lot of candles when I went to our chapel this morning and when I arrived the priest told us that we will light the candle and join in the entrance procession and we will stay in front as he says the prayer for the blessing of the candles, and that if you have many candles you just have to light one and just bring along with you the rest.

Some of the church people were not aware of the feast so they asked candle from me and I gave them, and since I already gave some of my candles to some people I decided to just retain one for myself and give the rest to those sitting in the pews so they too could join in the procession. Most who had extra candles saw that and also started giving to others. So it turned out that almost all the people in the chapel joined in the procession and were blessed together with the candles!

I was thinking “How great!” Oftentimes people are just asked to bring their candles in front and then the priest will bless them after mass but there we were lighting our candles and being blessed with our candles. It was like we were presenting ourselves to God!

I thought that I would light the remaining of the candle at home tonight when the family prays the rosary, an appropriate use of the blessed candle as the blessing is shared with my family. But something else came to mind, I too was presented at the altar and blessed by the priest, shouldn’t I be the LIGHT for others? Of course I should! That is the role of every Christian. BUT sometimes I don’t really know how to make my light shine properly… even with my good intention, some of my action backfires as people closest to me and whom I want to bring to the Lord seems to move away further…

That was answered by the priest’s homily…

Waiting

Fr. Mon’s homily did not focus on Jesus but on Simeon and Anna… their waiting!

They were two old people who were promised of Christ’s coming early on in their lives. That they would live to see His coming. And they had to wait… and wait… and wait. But they just did not wait, they patiently waited believing on God’s promise! And true enough they witnessed Christ’s coming.

I too am waiting… PRAYING for a lot of things to happen, waiting for some of my prayers to be answered… praying for complete healing for myself and others… waiting for the transformation of loved ones! Many people who grieve also wait for joy to come back to their lives… pray for their pains to go away… to finally find what they are looking for.

We should all follow the examples of Simeon and Anna. We wait with hope always believing in God’s promise for in His time and in His way our prayers will be answered!