Reflection on the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord into the Temple

The feast of the Meeting of the Lord marks the end of the Nativity season. Forty days ago, we greeted the newborn King with the cry “Christ is born!” Now, forty days after his birth, the Lord comes to Jerusalem to be offered in the temple of the Law. Today he is redeemed for the price of two turtledoves, but at the end of the coming forty days of Great Lent, he shall come to Jerusalem once again, this time to offer himself as the price of our redemption. Today, as an infant, Jesus fulfills the external requirements of the Law, but at the end of his thirty-three years, having obeyed the Law perfectly, he will bring it to its ultimate fulfillment on the Cross.