Following is the text of the meditation by His Beatitude Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, for the Feast of the Holy Family B, dated December 31, 2023:

 

We have seen, in the Christmas Gospels, how the coming of the Son of God in the flesh of our humanity found welcome among his people.

 

Jesus is welcomed by Mary and then by Joseph. He is welcomed by the shepherds, invited by the angel to visit this child who will be a savior for all. (Luke 2:11)

 

All who welcome him must make a journey, sometimes physical, sometimes all inward: the shepherds must set out to go all the way to Bethlehem; (Luke 2:15) before them, Mary and Joseph must open themselves to an intervention by God that demands of them a leap of faith, that asks them to welcome a gift that will completely transform their lives.

 

Therefore, those who welcome Jesus are the poor, that is, precisely those who agree to leave their positions and set out on a journey toward a newness of life.

 

Great joy is promised to them. (Luke 2:10)

 

Today Jesus is welcomed in a different context, that of the temple in Jerusalem (Luke 2:22-40).

 

In the temple, surely, there must have been many people. There must have been scribes and doctors, priests and Levites.

 

But these people do not welcome the child Jesus, who, carried by his parents, is presented to the Lord, as it was written in the law.

 

Noticing his presence are two unimportant people, who have no role, who are not there to fulfill a religious duty, but out of pure gratuitousness.

 

For both, the evangelist Luke uses a verb of movement: Simeon, moved by the Spirit, goes to the temple; (Luke 2:27) Anna, who never left the temple, arrives at that moment. (Luke 2:38)

 

He therefore welcomes the Lord who sets out, who allows himself to be inconvenienced, who is not installed in life, who accepts the risk of allowing himself to be led by the Spirit.

 

The two characters in today's Gospel tell us something important with respect to the journey of faith.

 

Anna tells us where this journey comes from, because the journey of faith does not arise from a solitary, heroic effort of those who, in their own strength, decide to follow the Lord, but rather, arises from a lack.

 

The life of Anna is described by the evangelist Luke in detail, unlike Simeon, about whom Luke says only that he was a righteous and pious man. (Luke 2:25). Anna is a person marked by a lack, a bereavement, a long loneliness: she is eighty-four years old, and she was widowed only seven years after her wedding day. (Luke 2:36-37)

 

Anna, however, is a woman who has been able to transform lack into expectation, into desire, into prayer.

 

She did not suffer her widowhood but made it the place where she opened herself to the hope of a gift, where she remained attentive and vigilant. And this set her on her way and gave her the grace to be there when Mary and Joseph entered the temple, to recognize in that child the awaited Messiah.

 

Simeon, however, tells us where this journey leads.

 

He does so with a word we find in v. 29: "Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace…" This formula, “let go in peace”, is a suggestive verb, which is used in different contexts of deliverance: for the release of a prisoner, for the end of military service, for the conclusion of an important and burdensome commitment.

 

It is as if Simeon, having come to this moment in his long journey, recognizes that he is at a turning point: his encounter with that child, his ability to recognize in him the fulfillment of salvation history (Luke 2:30) enable Simeon to believe that the journey in the wilderness is over, and now we enter the promised land; the time of slavery is over, now the time of freedom begins.

 

The journey continues, then, but it is a new journey, for the waiting is fulfilled and now is the time of fruits, where to taste more and more each day the gratuitous and merciful presence of the God with us.

 

Simeon knows that it will not be an easy journey, it will not be without toil, to the point of foretelling Mary that her soul will be wounded by a sword of pain. (Luke 2:35)

 

But he also knows that it will not be this pain that will stop the journey, for that same Spirit who foretold him that he would see the Messiah, (Luke 2:26) who guided him to the temple to acknowledge his presence, (Luke 2:27) is the Spirit of a faithful God, who has kept his promises, and who now lets his servant go in peace, according to his Word. (Luke 2:29)

 

+Pierbattista