A Pair of Turtledoves - The Presentation of the Lord

Luke 2:22-40 (22-24)
When the days were completed for their purification
according to the law of Moses,
Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem
to present him to the Lord,
just as it is written in the law of the Lord,
Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord,
and to offer the sacrifice of
a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,
in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.
...

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There is something strange about today’s feast ― the Presentation of the Lord. The reading says “Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem.” In part, their purpose was “to offer the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons” (Lk 2:22-23). This was a very old Jewish ritual. Forty days after the birth of a male child, its mother would “bring to the priest … a lamb or, if she could not afford it, two turtle doves or two young pigeons” (Lv 12:1-8). So they were simply following the Law. 

But that’s not what’s strange about it. We should also notice that the text says Mary “took Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord” (Lk 2:22). Indeed, that’s where this feast gets its name: the Presentation of the Lord. Mary and Joseph are offering their child to God. But that’s a little odd, isn’t it? I mean, he is God? How can you offer God to God? What kind of offering is this? What’s going on here? To answer this, we need to reflect on what it means to even make an offering to God. And perhaps it’s best to look at the very first sacrifice that was ever made. 

Do you remember Cain and Abel from the Book of Genesis? Do you remember why Cain killed Abel? Recall that Cain’s sacrifice was found unacceptable: “The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was angry… and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him” (Gen 4).

There’s a question that very rarely gets asked about this story. That is: what was wrong with Cain’s sacrifice? Well, if you read closely, you’ll notice that Abel is said to have “brought the firstlings of his flock” for his offering (Gen 4:4). He did not wait until he had a larger and more secure flock to make his sacrifice. Cain, on the other hand, is vaguely said to have made his grain offering “in the course of time” (Gen 4:3). In short, Abel was willing to offer sacrifices even if he could lose much. Cain was not. 

This tells us something about what Mary and Joseph were up to the day they presented Jesus in the Temple. Indeed, here’s the interesting thing about that old Jewish ritual: when a new mother would go to the Temple forty days after the birth of her son, there was no need for her to bring the child along with her. The point was for the mother to make an offering: a lamb if she could afford it, two birds if she could not. But there was no need to present the child alongside the sacrifice.

That Mary and Joseph offered turtledoves indicates that they were poor. But that they presented Jesus along with their turtledoves indicates that they had something far more valuable to offer. And, like Abel, they wanted to offer “the firstling of their flock,” the most valuable thing they had: their son. Indeed, this son also happened to be God’s Son. They could offer God to God. 

In life, it is often the case that we are so sick, tired, broken, and poor that we can only offer God “a pair of turtledoves,” that we can only offer God our problems, our weaknesses, and our pain. But just when we think that all we have are two measly birds, Mary and Joseph show us that it is precisely in our pain and brokenness that we possess the most valuable thing of all: Jesus. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus said. “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:3). It is by being poor in spirit that we come to possess Jesus, that we find ourselves able to offer him up in a Temple.

And so our two pathetic turtledoves are not so pathetic after all. They are precisely the thing that allow us to make a sacrifice like Abel’s or like Mary’s. Our poverty is what places us in contact with God. Our pain is what gives us something valuable to sacrifice. It’s what gives us Jesus. And so when we offer our measly turtledoves to God — when we offer him our weakness and our poverty, “the firstlings of our flock” — we find that we have actually offered to God something much more than turtledoves. We have actually offered our most intimate contact with God. We have actually offered something akin to Jesus himself.

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~Anthony Rosselli (PhD cand., theology, University of Dayton) writes out of St. Luke and Ascension Parishes in Franklin County, Vermont. These columns are archived here.

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What Makes a Family Holy? - The Feast of the Holy Family

Note: Through Advent and Christmas, I have decided to focus these reflections on the Virgin Mary and not on the weekly Gospel reading.

What Makes a Family Holy?

There is a funny and somewhat surprising story tucked away in Mark’s Gospel. After publicly healing a man of his withered hand, Mark reports that an enormous crowd began following Jesus (Mk 3:8). Many brought their sick relatives to be cured (3:10). The crowds pressed thickly upon Jesus and he was unable to rest a moment that day. We read that it became “impossible for him even to eat” (Mk 3:20). But amidst all this fervor, we learn of an odd detail. Jesus’ own relatives had caught wind of the commotion and were ― of all things ― embarrassed of him. The text says that “when his family heard about this they set out to seize him, for they said, ‘he is out of his mind’” (Mk 3:21). The Son of God was apparently acting in a way unbecoming of the family name. 

We should not be imagining that it was Mary or Joseph who were ashamed of their son. Indeed, most scholars suspect that Joseph ― not mentioned at all once Jesus begins his public ministry ― had by this time passed away. And it was Mary who once prompted Jesus to turn water into wine at a wedding in Cana (Jn 2). Mary was not ashamed of Jesus causing a commotion. Indeed, in the story from Mark’s Gospel, we learn just a few verses later that it was probably Jesus’ cousins who came to protect the family’s reputation from any further embarrassment (Mk 3:31). 

When we celebrate today’s “Feast of the Holy Family,” we don’t usually think of Jesus’ broader family. We’re even less likely to imagine that Jesus might not have been well-liked by all the cousins. And, more than that, when we think of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph we often think of their family life as the kind of thing that should be depicted on an ornament, as something quite cozy. We imagine them gathered around a warm hearth untroubled by the sinful world around them.

On the contrary, part of what makes the Holy Family holy is that it wasn’t the kind of thing that could be depicted on an ornament. Indeed, no real family’s daily life is the kind of thing that should ever be depicted on an ornament. And the Holy Family was a real family. That means they had real relatives who really were whackos. Just like your family. Part of what makes the Holy Family holy is that they didn’t isolate themselves from that whackiness, but were in the fray.

An important detail: when Jesus’ relatives came to collect him, Mary was right in their midst. Someone from the crowd even told Jesus: “your mother and family are outside looking for you” (Mk 3:32). Whackos or not, these were Mary’s people. This was her family. She was in the fray with these cousins who were embarrassed of her son. Did she have to listen to them apologizing to those who’d gathered? “I’m so sorry for this. He’s out of his mind.” Was she admonished by her relatives? “Didn’t you teach him better than this?”

This was the Holy Family’s family, and ― odd as it may seem ― that family was embarrassed of Jesus. But Mary did not cut them out of her life, safely retreating to those people who accept her. The Holy Family would not have been very holy had it remained walled-off from the world’s unholiness, had it remained contentedly around the hearth at Nazareth. Holiness is not closed in on itself. It wants to go outside itself, even into very dark places. Indeed, the holiness of the Holy Family was not for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph alone. It was also for those cousins who were embarrassed of Jesus. 

Yes, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph lived lives of extraordinary holiness. They were the “Holy Family.” But we should not imagine that the coming together of their lives formed some sort of impenetrable bubble around their home. The bitterness of the world broke into their lives. It crucified one of them. And he left his home knowing it would. 

The world is as embarrassed of Jesus today as it was when he was causing a commotion in ancient Israel. This is no reason to cut those cousins out of your life. On the contrary, it is reason to model your family after the Holy Family, to remain close to those who are convinced you all ― like Jesus ― “are out of your minds.” Click here to subscribe to these reflections by email

"Betrothed to a man named Joseph" - 3rd Sunday of Advent

Note: For the season of Advent and Christmas, I've decided to focus these reflections on the Virgin Mary rather than the weekly Gospel.

"Betrothed to a man named Joseph"

There’s an old story about Mary that nobody really tells anymore. A text called the Golden Legend from the Middle Ages described how, when Mary was ready for marriage, a whole host of suitors ― Joseph included ― lined up before her with branches from their homes. Whoever’s branch, when laid upon the Temple altar, produced a flower would be the one she married. It was said that a young man named Agabus was so crushed by Joseph winning Mary’s hand that he snapped his branch over his knee and fled weeping into the desert. He swore never to love another woman and lived the rest of his days as a celibate monk. You can find this legend painted in churches across Italy. In Raphael’s depiction ― a copy of which still hangs in Germany ― a youthful Joseph slides a ring onto a blushing Mary’s finger as Agabus annihilates his branch in front of the wedding party. It’s all very dramatic.

It reveals something about us that we don’t tell this story anymore. We don’t usually think of Mary getting caught up in these kinds of things, of her blushing over a boy. We don’t think of her as a heartbreaker. We’re not totally wrong here. In Mary’s time marriage had little to do with love. We didn’t marry for love until the nineteenth century. The odd thing is that the medievals who told this story didn’t marry for love either. Yet they translated this story into numerous languages ― they told it far and wide. Several dioceses even held feast days for it. The point is that ― and many historians have pointed this out ― just because the ancients and medievals didn’t marry for love doesn’t mean they never fell in love. How much of their art, music, and literature is about love? 

In crafting this story about Joseph winning Mary’s hand ― even if it’s not historically true ― the medievals had grasped something profoundly true about the marriage of Mary and Joseph that we modern Catholics often forget, namely that they were in love with each other, even romantically. Even if the ancients didn’t usually marry for the purpose love, how could the Holy Family not have been a locus of real married love? Indeed, Mary and Joseph are the spiritual parents of Catholics. We should not be afraid to imagine that our parents loved each other. 

Do not mishear me. Mary and Joseph’s marriage was a continent one. The medievals held this as dearly as we do. But they also knew love and intimacy cannot be reduced to sex. Why don’t we meditate on that more often? Did Mary not find Joseph handsome? His voice soothing? His arms safe? What keeps us from imagining a Mary who can’t stop smiling when she thinks of her Joseph coming home soon? He was very much her Joseph, her beloved. And what, on the other hand, prevents Joseph from thinking he’s the luckiest guy in the world? He was certainly luckier than poor Agabus! The way her hair falls upon her shoulder, the joke she tells that he doesn’t quite get but laughs at anyway, the odd way she dips her bread in their oil. It was all uniquely her. How many times did Joseph stop at his work just to think about her? She was his Mary, his beloved. 

It was no mistake that God decided to become human within a marriage. He could have become incarnate to Mary alone, without the addition of Joseph. God could, when Joseph learned of the strange pregnancy, have let him “send her away quietly” (Mt 1:19). But God decided to enter the world in the context of married love. God wanted to be raised by two people whose hearts beat a little faster when they looked at each other, whose hearts were vowed to each other through thick and through thin. Whatever that phenomenon is ― we could call it romantic love ― God is part of it. Indeed, God decided to be born within it.  That’s worth remembering.


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