Simeon was a devout man and that was why Christ came to him.  He had gone up according to his custom to the temple and while he was there the Holy Child came in.  So it is that we find Christ only after beginning the life of devotion and, in response to that turning of the soul and directing of the will to him, he comes to meet us.  It is he, who by the promptings of the Holy Spirit, stirs us to desire him and then, having done this, he waits for us to take the next step.  And that step is the one that few people can bring themselves to make – to hand themselves over to Our Blessed Lord completely and utterly, making a gift to him of all the years they still have to live, so that for the future he will be their sole and absolute owner in all they think and say and do.

It is when people give themselves like that to Christ that they find him and then, with a growing intensity, they are aware in all their waking moments of Christ’s gracious Presence; just as one is aware of the sun on a summer’s day.

To find Christ: three simple words of one syllable.  To those who have never really sought him, whose attention is focused on or occupied with worldly things, to them these three words must remain altogether a meaningless phrase, signifying nothing.

But to those who have found him, they sum up their religious experience so that, though they cannot explain it or communicate it, yet they know it as surely as one knows it is day.

To love Our Blessed Lord and to know his love in return is something which no one can describe.  Individuals must learn and find it for themselves, but they will do that only after they have devoted themselves wholly and unreservedly to Our Lord and, by the life of Sacrament and prayer, become more deeply and inextricably united to him.

“O hope of every contrite heart,
O joy of all the meek,
to those who ask, how kind thou art,
how good to those who seek!

But what to those who find? Ah, this
no tongue or pen can show;
the love of Jesus, what it is
none but his loved ones know”. (1) (our emphasis)

Reference

1. Latin, 12th century, trans. Caswall, E. (1849) Jesus, the very thought of thee.  Available from:
http://www.hymnary.org/hymn/TWC/112 (Accessed 11 January 2012) (Internet).