February 2 — the \u201cFeast of the Presentation of the Lord,\u201d as it is now titled — could make a woman like me quite sad, for a number of reasons.\u00a0 To begin with, the feast commemorates the \u201cpurification\u201d of the Blessed Virgin Mary forty days after giving birth, the time prescribed in the Hebrew Bible, for the ritual purification of a mother after the birth of a son.\u00a0 The birth of a girl would have doubled the time of a mother\u2019s ritual impurity.\u00a0 More importantly, the Lukan account of this event (Luke 2:22-38) keeps a woman prophet, Anna, silent while putting beautiful words into the mouth of a man, words that have become an important part of the liturgical tradition of prayers.\u00a0 Compare Simeon\u2019s eloquent \u201cNunc Dimittis\u201d with Luke\u2019s summary description of Anna, the prophet, as, simply also giving thanks to God \u2013 no words given to her.\u00a0 What did she say, I always wonder every February 2?<\/p>\n
Double reason, then, on February 2, to rejoice in the fact that the first extant notice of a feast marking the 40th<\/sup> day after Christ\u2019s birth comes to us from a woman, and one often noted for her remarkable interest in matters liturgical, no less.\u00a0 The woman, Egeria, in describing her visit to Jerusalem toward the end of the 4th<\/sup> century, mentions a feast day \u201ccelebrated with the highest honor\u201d on the 40th<\/sup> day after Christ\u2019s birth.\u00a0 It is of course not surprising that Christians in Jerusalem would mark this day with particular attention: it commemorated a \u201clocal\u201d event, Christ\u2019s first entry into the Jerusalem temple.\u00a0 Egeria mentions in particular that the sermons, by both priests and the bishop, treat Simeon and Anna and the words these two spoke when they encountered the Lord in the temple (Egeria, Itinerarium<\/em>, 26).\u00a0 The only problem is that the words of Anna were long lost by that time.\u00a0 Which makes it delightfully appropriate, I think, that the first words on today\u2019s feast are written by a woman.<\/p>\n And on that cheerful note: a blessed feast of Mary, Anna, and yes, Egeria to all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The \u201cFeast of the Presentation of the Lord,\u201d as it is now titled — could make a woman like me quite sad, for a number of reasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":40619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3119,362],"tags":[763,1073],"class_list":["post-40618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-plaza-new-ws","category-saints-mary","tag-egeria","tag-presentation-of-the-lord"],"yoast_head":"\n