Readings: 1 John 2:12-17; Psalm 96; Luke 2:36-40
Heaven and earth may pass away but the Word of the Lord endures forever. And whoever does the will of God remains forever, according to today's first reading.
Anna is very old. Whatever way we translate the information given about her it amounts to the same: she is a very old woman. She is passing away, we can say, just like Simeon and just like the former dispensation which is being replaced by the birth of the Son. But, again like Simeon, she is one who has done the will of the Lord and so she remains forever.
The phrases used in the first reading to describe what the world has to offer - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life - are exactly what attracted Eve and Adam to the forbidden fruit. Seeing that it was pleasing to the eye, good to eat, and would make them wise, they decided to eat of it, with dramatic consequences. Simeon and Anna are presented to us as saints of the old dispensation, people who have done the will of God and so have risen above these worldly desires.
The first reading gives us, then, one of the Johannine texts in which the world has a very negative sense. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, it tells us. But this is a strange statement considering that in the famous text of John 3:16 we are told that God so loved the world that he sent his only son not to condemn it but that it might be saved by him. And Jesus himself confirms this, that he had come not to condemn the world but to heal and save it.
One way out of this apparent contradiction would be to say that the term 'world' is being used in two different perspectives, for one of which the world is a bad place and for the other of which the world is a good place. But this is too easy. The truth is more complicated, as the truth often is. It is the same world in which the Christian is to be on guard that is loved by God.
Pope Francis opened a discussion recently about the translation of a phrase in the Our Father. 'Lead us not into temptation', 'do not put us to the test', 'do not allow us to be tempted': these are all possible translations of its penultimate phrase. It is not that God is trying to catch us out but that the world, precisely because it is good and beautiful, can distract and seduce us into valuing the things of the world more than the things of heaven.
There is no way to avoid temptation which is inevitable. But as Saint Teresa of Avila says, this is where virtue is seen, not by staying hidden in some safe corner but by living as fully as possible the life we have been given in this world, negotiating our way to the serenity and wisdom of old age, like Simeon and Anna, but 'in the midst of the occasions of falling'. And, God knows, in spite of falling many times. Otherwise why need a saviour? Otherwise why speak of the redemption of Jerusalem?
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