Pause & Reflect ~ Msg. Daniel Hoye

In our culture, we tend to front-load holidays.  If it's not just after, its before Thanksgiving that we start talking about Christmas.  Once Christmas comes then that's the end of it.

The Church takes a different approach; it pauses and reflects on a Feast for several days, if not weeks, after.  At Easter we have 50 days of pondering what it meant.  At Christmas we have the Octave, eight days, of thinking and reflecting on what we have celebrated.  And then it goes a few days longer - the Christmas Season goes until the Baptism of the Lord, January 11th this year.

Today we have in Luke's Gospel Simeon, who had been promised he would see the Lord, he would see the Christ, before his death.  We have in this translation "Lord, now let your servant go in peace"; that he has captured this significant moment in the life of faith.

In the church the final prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours, (Night Prayer or Compline), in Latin was always known as Nunc dimittis, Now you may dismiss your servant.  Maybe that's the approach that all of us can take in our own spiritual life.  We really have seen the core of the Incarnation and the Resurrection, as well.  That we ought to be ready to be "dismissed" at any time.  Maybe not a popular reflection, but a reality of life itself.