“Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple…” (NRSV, Luke 2:27)

The episode of Simeon is one of the most beautifully told in the whole of the New Testament.  In its vividness, achieved by a remarkable economy of words, it recalls one of those brightly coloured miniatures which decorate the capital letters in old illuminated manuscripts.

We are shown the aged Simeon, his saintly face aglow with faith and expectation as he climbed eagerly and purposefully the steps leading up from the vast outer courtyard of the Temple to the gateway which in turn opened onto the first inner court of the Temple building itself.

In the ordinary way he would not have come until the time of the afternoon sacrifice.  On this particular day, however, he had been brought by an inner prompting from God which he recognised as the prelude to the long awaited fulfilment of God’s promise to him.  For it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Anointed, the long prophesied Messiah and Deliverer.

So he stood there within the inner court, scanning the faces of the people as they passed through the gateway.  Soon he was rewarded.  Mary, with Joseph at her side, reverently entered carrying in her arms her Divine Son.  The bystanders and passers-by would not have noticed them, but Simeon was given by God the inner spiritual vision to recognise the identity of the holy Child.  Without hesitation he went up to Mary and taking her Infant into his arms, he blessed God and said the prayer which we now know as the Nunc Dimittis.

And there, in that simple but immortal scene, we have the perfect illustration of religious faith.  Faith is not something which we can create within ourselves.  It is a gift of God by which we are enabled to accept the truths he has revealed; and from accepting them to go further until faith culminates in accepting and trusting God himself as the Person who has revealed them.

Although the truths of the Christian religion are reasonable, none of them is so self-evident as to compel assent as does, for example, the two-times table.  For that reason a person’s belief in them must be formed by something more than reason or evidence alone.  So it is, when people are well-disposed towards God and acknowledge that the doctrines of Christianity are worthy of belief, they are given by God the inner spiritual vision by which they are able to recognise that those doctrines are in fact truths; and belief in them becomes an absolute certainty which forms the foundation of their day by day relationship with God (see 1 Corinthians 2:9-14).

Thus faith enables us to perceive the significance of what would otherwise be meaningless statements or events.  For example, without faith the Crucifixion is nothing more than the execution of an innocent man; but by faith we recognise it as the cost which Christ willingly paid to save us from the power of evil and to restore us to God.

So the Resurrection and Ascension are seen to be the evidence and the guarantee of the power and presence of the living Christ in our midst today.

So too, “faith, our outward sense befriending”, (1) the Blessed Sacrament is perceived to be his glorified Body by which in Holy Communion he and we become truly one.

Thus the gift of faith is not just the acceptance of certain truths, but is the basis of one’s whole personal relationship with God to whom those truths relate.

When Simeon saw the Infant Christ and recognised who he was, he took the Child in his arms.  So believing, trustful Christians, having recognised Our Blessed Lord as their God and Saviour, take him into their very hearts, there to share their being and their life.

It is this inner life with Our Blessed Lord, the life of faith, which distinguishes the true Christian from the conventional one.  It is possible to attend church with the utmost regularity and yet for there to be no personal relationship between oneself and God: to regard the services as the meetings of an organisation, and to give God no more than a perfunctory and distant recognition of his association with them.

But a faithful soul has a conscious bond with God which is renewed and deepened by the offering of himself or herself in the worship of the Church.

Above all, however, the Christian’s faith is deepened by trial or suffering.  It may be a long proving – a weary trial of one’s patience and fortitude with only faith in God to sustain one; like the long wait that Simeon had to undergo year after year before at last he held the Christ Child in his very arms.

Or it may be a sudden anguish which only a truly faithful soul could bear without losing its love and trust for God altogether.  It was thus with Mary, as old Simeon prophesied that day in the Temple.  “…a sword will pierce your own soul too” (NRSV, Luke 2:35).  And it is no accident that the word he used for sword referred to the brutal broad-bladed weapon of the barbarians of Thrace.

That prophecy was fulfilled indeed on the day when the Mother of Sorrows stood beneath the Cross; and she who had in the Temple cradled her Son as an Infant in her arms, now on Calvary held his body tortured to death by crucifixion.  But her faith in the goodness and the love of God was unshaken and unshakeable, and it was vindicated by the Resurrection of Jesus.

So the next glimpse we have of her in the New Testament is that which is given to us by St Luke: the Apostles “…were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus…” (NRSV, Acts 1:14).  Thus was the faith of even the Mother of God tried and proved.

May our faith survive its lesser trials and troubles, so that our devotion to God may likewise remain true and steadfast to the end.

Reference

St Thomas Aquinas (13th century) trans. Caswall, E. (1848) Now, my tongue, the mystery telling.  Available from: http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/n/n130.html (Accessed 30 December 2010) (Internet).