The story of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple does not appear in the New Testament. It is found in the Gospel of James, one of the many Gospels written in different early Christian communities to encourage their members. It dates from the second century and was drawn on in later Christian literature. It is a prequel to the stories of Jesus’ infancy in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew. It describes Mary’s birth to Joachim and Anne and her childhood. It responds to the interest of early Christians in Mary’s birth as a virgin and in the role of Joseph in their marriage. The story of Anne’s pregnancy and of her presentation of Mary to the temple is modelled on the Old Testament story of Hannah’s shame at her childlessness, her prayer to God for a child, the birth of her son Samuel, and her presentation of him to God in the Temple.
In Jewish law mothers were ritually impure for 40 days after birth, and the first-born male of every animal was to be sacrificed to God. At the end of 40 days mothers were freed from ritual impurity in the Temple, and in the case of male children an animal sacrifice was offered instead of the child. This ritual, prescribed in the book of Exodus, recalled the freeing of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. In Luke’s Gospel Mary brought Jesus to the Temple after Jesus’ birth, and was cleansed of ritual impurity, while offering a sacrifice for him as her first-born.
Anne, too, was duly purified after birth. A year later Joachim and Anne invited people to a great feast when they brought Mary to the priests who blessed her. They decided, however, to postpone giving her to the Lord at the Temple until she was a little older, and so would not miss her parents. When she was three – a little young, we might think today, they presented her to the Temple, where the priest welcomed, her and sat her down on the third step of the altar. Then, as she climbed to go to the priest ‘she danced on her feet and all the house of Israel loved her. And her parents went down, marvelling and praising and glorifying the lord God that the child hadn’t turned back. And Mary was in the Temple of the Lord.’
The Gospel of James was the basis for the Latin Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew which became popular in the Medieval Western Church. Its stories were embellished by other writers and provided the basis for medieval and later painters’ treatment of Mary’s life. Those paintings, many of which represent the pathos of any scene in which a young woman leaves her family to follow her dreams, perhaps explain why in the late 18th century many women’s religious congregations in France and Ireland were named after the Presentation of Mary. The images of Mary leaving her parents and climbing the steps to the Temple appeal to the generosity both of the young women who joined them and of the family who entrusted them to the Convent.
For Australian Catholics the Feast reminds us of the debt that we owe to the Presentation sisters and to so many others who left their own nations to teach in Catholic convents throughout Australia. They were the mothers of faith in Australia.
Image: Denys Calvaert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.