Pax Christ Reflection for Feast of the Holy Family

Icon by Kelly Latimore, 'La Presentacion de Cristo en el Templo'

Sister Katrina Alton CSJP writes:

The season of Advent has ended and the long awaited One has arrived. Not with the expected pomp and circumstance, but he is here, Emmanuel, God-with-us. Yet on this feast of the Holy Family the Advent theme of 'waiting' re-emerges.

We journey with Mary and Joseph from Bethlehem, on the periphery, to Jerusalem, the heart of religious and political power. They go to fulfill the requirements of the Law of Moses and present their first-born son to the priest, and to God. Once inside the Temple we never meet a priest. Instead we encounter Simeon and Anna, who had spent decades doing just one thing - waiting. Not waiting passively, idly, or with resentment, but with patience, attention, longing.

I'd often wondered what sustained them over the years, especially Anna. How did this elderly, lonely, female figure,remain faithful in her prayer and fasting? What kept that spark of longing alight? How was she treated by the religious authorities?

Finding this icon by Kelly Latimore, 'La Presentacion de Cristo en el Templo', shed a whole new light onto this Gospel scene for me.

Anna and Simeon are depicted as 'campesinos' - the 'anawim', the 'little ones'. The men and women who know what it is like to go to bed hungry - yet welcome the widow and orphan to share whatever food they have. The men and women who know that if they speak out against the unjust practices of the local land owner they may never be hired again - but still they speak. They represent all the poor and oppressed peoples of all time who long for God's reign of justice to break through. They wait, they long, they hope, because their hunger and thirst for justice is a daily reality.

The 'campesinos' Anna and Simeon, are among the 'blessed' who hunger and thirst for justice as for food and water. May we share with them that same hunger and thirst, that longing.May we be blessed with them, as we celebrate once again the coming of the Son of Justice, who promised that they would be satisfied.