Faciem tuam, Domine, requiram
In 2011, my dear friend Richard Chonak performed a spiritual work of mercy for the readers of Vultus Christi by translating this magnificent text of Pope Benedict XVI. Here, again, is Mr. Chonak’s lovely translation. I added the subtitles in boldface that may help those who want to pray their way through it. To illustrate the text, I chose Blessed Fra Angelico’s painting of the Presentation because of its extraordinary luminosity.
Homily of Pope Benedict XVI
Vatican Basilica
Tuesday, February 2, 2011
The meeting of the two Testaments
Dear brothers and sisters! In today’s Feast we contemplate the Lord Jesus, whom Mary and Joseph present at the temple “to offer him to the Lord” (Lk 2:22). In this gospel scene the mystery of the Virgin’s Son, consecrated by the Father, having come into the world to faithfully accomplish His will (cf. Heb. 10:5-7), is revealed. Simeon points him out as a “light to enlighten the nations” (Lk 2:32) and announces with a prophetic word his supreme offering to God and his final victory (cf. Lk 2:32-35). It is the meeting of the two Testaments, Old and New. Jesus enters into the old Temple, He who is the new Temple of God: he comes to visit his people, bringing obedience to the Law to fulfillment and inaugurating the last days of salvation.
The light that comes to enlighten the world
It is interesting to observe closely this entrance of the Child Jesus into the solemnity of the temple, into a great hustle and bustle of so many people occupied by their duties: the priests and Levites with their turns at service, the many faithful and pilgrims desiring to meet the holy God of Israel. But none of them realizes a thing. Jesus is a child like every other, the first-born son of two very simple parents. Even the priests prove unable of grasping the signs of the new and particular presence of the Messiah and Savior. Only two elderly people, Simeon and Anna, discover the great news. Led by the Holy Spirit, they find in this child the fulfillment of their long waiting and watching. Both contemplate the light of God, who comes to enlighten the world, and their prophetic gaze opens into the future, as an announcement of the Messiah: Lumen ad revelationem gentium! (Lk 2:32). In the prophetic attitude of the two venerable elders, the entire Old Covenant expresses the joy of meeting the Redeemer. In the face of the Child, Simeon and Anna grasp intuitively that He is the long-awaited One.
An eloquent icon of consecrated life
The Presentation of Jesus in the temple constitutes an eloquent icon of the total self-giving of life by which so many men and women are called to reproduce “the characteristic traits of Jesus chaste, poor, and obedient” in the Church and in the world, by means of the evangelical counsels. (Post-synodal exhortation Vita consecrata,1). Because of this, today’s Feast was chosen by the Venerable John Paul II to celebrate the annual Day of Consecrated Life. . . . I would like to present three brief thoughts in reflection on this Feast.
The light of divine beauty shines on the face of Christ
First: the gospel icon of the Presentation of Jesus in the temple contains the fundamental symbol of light: the light that, coming from Christ, shines upon Mary and Joseph, upon Simeon and Anna, and through them, upon all. The Fathers of the Church connected this radiance with the spiritual path. Consecrated life expresses that path in a particular way as “philokalia”, love for divine beauty, a reflection of the goodness of God (cf. ibid., 19). On the face of Christ shines the light of that beauty. “The Church contemplates the transfigured face of Christ, in order to be strengthened in faith, and in order not to risk being confused before his face disfigured on the Cross … she is the Bride before her Bridegroom, sharer in his mystery, wrapped in his light, [by which] all her children are united. But those called to consecrated life have a singular experience of the light that proceeds from the Word incarnate. The profession of the evangelical counsels, truly, places them as a sign and prophecy for the community of the brethren and for the world.” (ibid., 15)
True prophecy is born in friendship with God
In the second place, the gospel icon shows us prophecy, gift of the Holy Spirit. Simeon and Anna, contemplating the Child Jesus, speak of his destiny of death and resurrection for the salvation of all the nations and announce this mystery as universal salvation. Consecrated life is called to a like prophetic testimony, tied to its two attitudes, contemplative and active. To consecrated persons, truly, is given to show forth the primacy of God, passion for the Gospel practiced as a way of life and proclaimed to the poor, and to the ends of the earth. “By virtue of this primacy nothing can be set before personal love for Christ and for the poor in whom He lives. True prophecy is born of God, from friendship with Him, from the attentive hearing of his Word in the various circumstances of history.” (ibid., 84) In this way consecrated life, in its daily experience on the roads of mankind, shows forth the Gospel and the Kingdom already present and active.
Seeking the face of the Lord: true wisdom
In the third place, the gospel icon of the Presentation of the Lord in the temple shows the wisdom of Simeon and Anna, the wisdom of a life dedicated totally to seeking the face of God, his signs, his will; a life dedicated to the hearing and proclaiming of his Word. Faciem tuam, Domine, requiram: your face, O Lord, I seek (Ps 26:8)…. Consecrated life is in the world and in the Church a visible sign of this seeking for the face of the Lord and of the ways that lead to Him (cf. Jn 14:8)…. The consecrated person therefore bears witness to the commitment, joyful and at the same time laborious, to the assiduous and wise search for the divine will.” (cf. Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Instruction “The service of authority and obedience”, Faciem tuam Domine requiram [2008], 1)
Hearers and searchers of the Word
Dear brothers and sisters, be assiduous hearers of the Word, because all wisdom in life is born of the Word of the Lord! Be searchers of the Word, by means of lectio divina, so that consecrated life “is born from hearing the Word of God and taking the Gospel as its norm of life. To live as a follower of Christ chaste, poor, and obedient is, in a way, a living «exegesis» of the Word of God. The Holy Spirit, through whose power the Bible was written, is the same one who illuminates the Word of God with new light for the founders and foundresses. Every charism springs from it, and every rule seeks to be an expression of it”
(Exhortation Verbum Domini, 83).
A luminous testimony to the splendor of truth
We live today, above all in the more developed societies, a situation often marked by a radical pluralism, by a progressive marginalization of religion from the public sphere, by a relativism that touches on fundamental values. This demands that our Christian testimony be luminous and coherent and that our educational effort be every more attentive and generous. May your apostolic activity, in particular, dear brothers and sisters, become a commitment of life that reaches, with persevering passion, to wisdom as truth and as beauty, “the splendor of truth”. With the wisdom of your life, and with trust in the inexhaustible possibilities of true education, may you know how to orient the understanding and the heart of men and women of our time toward the “good life of the Gospel”.
Entrustment to Our Lady
In this moment, my thought goes with special affection to all consecrated men and women, in every part of the world, and I entrust them to the Blessed Virgin Mary:
O Mary, Mother of the Church,
I entrust to you all of consecrated life,
so that you may obtain for it the fullness of divine light:
may it live in the hearing of the Word of God,
in the humility of following Jesus your Son and our Lord,
in welcoming the visitation of the Holy Spirit,
in the daily joy of the Magnificat,
so that the Church may be built up in holiness of life
by these your sons and daughters,
in the commandment of love. Amen.
