21st November 2020

Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Final states of a righteous Man: Heaven

St. Ignatius’ opening line in the First Principle and Foundation in The Spiritual Exercises is “The goal of our life is to live with God forever.” For some, considering eternal life can seem abstract compared to our life with God on earth. Pedro Arrupe says, “nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in love in quite an absolute final way.” Here are a few questions to help move our minds, hearts and everliving soul from the abstract to practical. 

Where do I find God? Does this naturally deepen my love for him? Can I imagine this as a love that lasts forever? How does this move me?

Today, we perceive a mistake in these interlocutors of Jesus, the Sadducees: they imagined eternal life as a mere “endless continuation” of their earthly life. No surprise they denied the Resurrection! But, we do not discover eternal life through the analysis of our own existence; the “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting” is the result of believing in the living God.

Eternity is not simply “time without end”, but another plane of existence, in which everything converges in the “here and now of love”. The new quality of being that is liberated from the fragmentation of existence. It will be the moment to submerge ourselves in oceans of limitless Love, in which time —the before and after— no longer exist: this is Heaven, where “they all live for Him” A life we yearn to live forever!

The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

‘Sing, rejoice, daughter of Zion; for I am coming to dwell in the middle of you…’

In unity with Eastern Christianity, and commemorating the dedication in 543 of the New Basilica of Saint Mary, built next to the Temple at Jerusalem, this feast celebrates Mary’s “dedication” of herself to God from her infancy, inspired by the Holy Spirit, whose grace had filled her ever since her immaculate conception.

We know, now, the joyful fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy. But, at the time of her presentation, Mary was just an infant – a child set apart, no doubt, but as yet unaware of the future to come. We, too, are ‘presented’ to God, at the time of our Baptism and receive the ‘commission’ for our own futures. As infants, we may not realise this but, as we grow in faith, we are made fully aware through the teachings of the Church and the Sacraments. Will we be as accepting as Mary was at the time of the Annunciation?

May our response always be: Here I am Lord; I come to do Your will.