Sunday 19 February 2012

The Paralytic at Caparnaum

Seventh Sunday of Ordianary Time, 19th February.


Christ healing the paralytic at Capernaum.
Bernhard Rode 1780

Healing the paralytic at Capernaum


Christ healing the paralytic at Capernaum by Bernhard Rode 1780. on Right.

Healing the paralytic at Capernaum is one of the miracles of Jesus in the Gospels in Matthew (9:1-8), Mark (2:1-12) and Luke (5:17-26).

"And now, to convince you that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins while he is on earh ... ."  Mark. 1:10. - Knox Translation.
See: The Amplified Bible
Below KJV+ Mk 2:10 powerG1849 Strong    "authoirty" .... 

Harmony KJV+
46. Thronged in Capernaum, He heals a paralytic lowered through the roof of Peter's house

Mat 9:1-8
Mar 2:1-12
Luk 5:17-26
1  AndG2532 he enteredG1684 intoG1519 a ship,G4143 and passed over,G1276 andG2532 cameG2064 intoG1519 his ownG2398 city.G4172  . . .
6  ButG1161 thatG2443 ye may knowG1492 thatG3754 theG3588 SonG5207 of manG444 hathG2192 powerG1849 onG1909 earthG1093 to forgiveG863 sins,G266 (thenG5119 saithG3004 he to theG3588 sick of the palsy,)G3885 Arise,G1453 take upG142 thyG4675 bed,G2825 andG2532 goG5217 untoG1519 thineG4675 house.G3624
1  AndG2532 againG3825 he enteredG1525 intoG1519 CapernaumG2584 . . .

10  ButG1161 thatG2443 ye may knowG1492 thatG3754 theG3588 SonG5207 of manG444 hathG2192 powerG1849 onG1909 earthG1093 to forgiveG863 sins,G266 (he saithG3004 to theG3588 sick of the palsy,)G3885


17  AndG2532 it came to passG1096 onG1722 a certainG3391 day,G2250 as(G2532) heG846 wasG2258 teaching,G1321

24  ButG1161 thatG2443 ye may knowG1492 thatG3754 theG3588 SonG5207 of manG444 hathG2192 powerG1849 uponG1909 earthG1093 to forgiveG863 sins,G266 (he saidG2036 unto theG3588 sick of the palsy,)G3886 I sayG3004 unto thee,G4671






Saturday 18 February 2012

Liturgy

Fr. Z's Blog – What Does The Prayer Really Say?

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/02/wdtprs-7th-sunday-of-ordinary-time-be-all-that-you-can-be/ 

Very rich from Fr. Z.
Just added to our Liturgy in Folder  from Favourites.
"The excellent Lewis & Short Dictionary shows that rationabilis is an adjective meaning “reasonable, rational”. I make a choice for “rational” here, partly because of an association I make between this prayer and another I know. But first, a Biblical connection.- - -.




In John 8,28-29 Jesus gives a warning to unbelieving Jews:

So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him (quae placita sunt ei, facio semper).


Now for the connection I mentioned above.
When I was studying philosophy, at the beginning of all the classes, we would always recite a prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas (+1274):

Concede mihi, miséricors
Deus, quae tibi sunt plácita,
ardenter concupíscere, prudenter 
investigáre, veráciter agnóscere,
et perfecte adimplére ad laudem 
et gloriam Nominis tui. Amen.

Grant me, O merciful God,
to desire eagerly, to investigate 
prudently, to acknowledge 
sincerely, and perfectly to fulfill
those things which are pleasing to 
Thee, to the praise and glory of
Thy Name. Amen.

Students and parents of home-schoolers… you might want to jot down that prayer and use it.



RIGHT: Our Lady of Lourdes

Our Lady of Lourdes is depicted in a modern painting by Stephen B. Whatley,
an expressionist artist based in London.
The feast of Our Lady of Lourdes is Feb. 11,
marking Mary’s first appearance to St. Bernadette Soubirous
in the small town in southwest France.

CNS photo/Stephen B Whatley






Dickens had a Marian Vision

 
 http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/2012/02/15/the-night-dickens-had-a-marian-vision/ 
The night Dickens had a Marian vision

As we celebrate 200 years since Dickens’s birth William Oddie recalls the writer’s uncanny vision of a woman in blue

By WILLIAM ODDIE on Wednesday, 10 February 2012

A woman holds an enlarged stamp of Nicholas Nickleby
from the Royal Mail’s stamp issue marking the
200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens (PA photo)




It is a major national commemoration: Charles Dickens, England’s greatest novelist, was born just two centuries ago. England’s greatest dramatist, William Shakespeare – or so some writers are now plausibly claiming – may well have been a Catholic. It is harder to make such a claim for Dickens: G K Chesterton, however, (who certainly understood Dickens better than Dickens understood himself) did in effect claim that Dickens was at heart a Catholic: and, as I shall argue, this is a claim by no means as outlandish as it might at first seem.
It is, of course, true that Dickens rarely departed from the anti-popery of the average Victorian Protestant Englishman. Travelling through Switzerland in 1845 he crossed a river, from a Catholic Canton into a Protestant one, and noted the contrast between “on the Protestant side, neatness; cheerfulness; industry; education; continual aspiration, at least, after better things” and “on the Catholic side, dirt, disease, ignorance, squalor, and misery”. He went on to say that he had “so constantly observed the like of this… that [he had] a sad misgiving that the religion of Ireland lies as deep at the root of all its sorrows… as English misgovernment and Tory villainy”.

It was, however, one of Chesterton’s principal claims in his great book on Dickens that It was upon him that “the real tradition of ‘Merry England’ had descended”:

The Pre-Raphaelites, the Gothicists, the admirers of the Middle Ages, had in their subtlety and sadness the spirit of the present day. Dickens had in his buffoonery and bravery the spirit of the Middle Ages… It was he who had the things of Chaucer, the love of large jokes and long stories and brown ale and all the white roads of England…

In fighting for Christmas he was fighting for… the holy day which is really a holiday … He cared as little for mediævalism as the mediævals did… He had no pleasure in looking on the dying Middle Ages. But he looked on the living Middle Ages… and he hailed it like a new religion.

Dickens was, of course, as Chesterton recognised, intellectually hostile to the Catholic Middle Ages, lacking as he did both self-knowledge and understanding of the past: “[H]e supposed,” said Chesterton, “the Middle Ages to have consisted of tournaments and torture-chambers, he supposed himself to be a brisk man of the manufacturing age, almost a Utilitarian. But for all that he defended the mediæval feast which was going out against the Utilitarianism which was coming in. He could only see all that was bad in mediævalism. But he fought for all that was good in it.”

Though Dickens hated all displays of religious feeling, he had a distinct and sincerely held religion of his own, possibly influenced by the Unitarianism of his friend and biographer John Forster. In 1868 he gave a New Testament to a son setting out for Australia, “because it is the best book that ever was, or will be, known in the world”; and he wrote to him in order “most solemnly [to] impress upon [him] the truth and beauty of the Christian Religion, as it came from Christ Himself”. “Never,” he went on, “abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private prayers, night and morning. I have never abandoned it myself, and I know the comfort of it.”

This was the Dickens who in 1844 underwent a religious experience (rarely written about), which he described vividly in a letter to Forster. “Let me tell you,” he wrote from Venice, “of a curious dream I had, last Monday night; and of the fragments of reality I can collect; which helped to make it up … In an indistinct place, which was quite sublime in its indistinctness, I was visited by a Spirit. I could not make out the face, nor do I recollect that I desired to do so. It wore a blue drapery, as the Madonna might in a picture by Raphael; and bore no resemblance to any one I have known except in stature … It was so full of compassion and sorrow for me… that it cut me to the heart; and I said, sobbing, ‘Oh! give me some token that you have really visited me!… Answer me one… question!’ I said, in an agony of entreaty lest it should leave me. ‘What is the True religion?’ As it paused a moment without replying, I said – Good God in such an agony of haste, lest it should go away! – ’You think, as I do, that the Form of religion does not so greatly matter, if we try to do good? or,’ I said, observing that it still hesitated, and was moved with the greatest compassion for me, ‘perhaps the Roman Catholic is the best? perhaps it makes one think of God oftener, and believe in him more steadily?’

“‘For you,’ said the Spirit, full of such heavenly tenderness for me, that I felt as if my heart would break; ‘for you it is the best!’ Then I awoke, with the tears running down my face, and myself in exactly the condition of the dream. It was just dawn.”

Was this a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as many Catholics will naturally assume? During the course of the dream, Dickens made the assumption that he was speaking to his wife’s sister, Mary Hogarth, who had died in 1837, and whom he had dearly loved (though he also perceived that the spirit “bore no resemblance to any one I have known”). But he also explained the dream afterwards in explicitly Catholic terms, pointing out that there was “a great altar in our bed-room” where Mass had once regularly been said, and that he had been “listening to the convent bells (which ring at intervals in the night), and so had thought, no doubt, of Roman Catholic services”.

“Put the case,” he wrote to Forster, “of that wish” [the ambition he had expressed in an earlier letter, to leave in his writings his “hand upon the time … with one tender touch for the mass of toiling people that nothing could obliterate”] “being fulfilled by any agency in which I had no hand; and I wonder whether I should regard it as a dream, or an actual Vision!”

A vision of the Blessed Virgin, strengthening what was to become Dickens’s lifelong vocation of fighting in his writings for “the mass of toiling people”? It is worth repeating that Dickens himself certainly wondered whether this was indeed “an actual Vision”: and if a vision,

of whom else?

William Oddie is the author of Dickens and Carlyle: The Question of Influence (Centenary Press, 1972)

Showing 5 comments

 
Parasum 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand "It is worth repeating that Dickens himself certainly wondered whether this was indeed “an actual Vision”: and if a vision, of whom else?"


## Why not of Mary Hogarth, whom he first thought it to be ? Why does everyone called Mary have to be that particular Mary & no other ? FWIW, the BVM is not the only person to have appeared to the living; many Saints have done so; and Saints are not alone in doing so.


Article on Mary Scott Hogarth here:

http://www.victorianweb.org/au...


What is said makes a good case, quite incidentally, for identifying his nocturnal visitant with her, and not with the far more famous Mary. Mary Hogarth was already very dear to him, as well as being a relative - so it would be natural for him to dream of her, or even have a vision of her.


1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand The story of the vision and the style of Oddie's writing made this a great read but it was the question raised by Dickens which was the most intriguing for me, namely 'What is the one true religion?' and his explanation 'it makes one think of God oftener...'. I am working my way through Ratzinger's "Truth and Tolerance" and he addresses this same question by placing it in the broader context of culture and thus the two together form an intersting synchronicity, one a vision, the other visionary.

 
silverlady 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand God speaks in dreams as well as in visions.


A Like Reply 2 days ago 0 Like


2 comments collapsed Collapse Expand do you, by chance, know of a citation where the full letter resides on the internet?


Parasum 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand


Go to this:

http://books.google.co.uk/book...



I searched with a quotation - p.245 is the beginning of the account of the dream.

Or, see: http://www.archive.org/stream/...

for page147 of vol.2 of John Forster's "Life of Dickens", an earlier edition of the book quoted above. The pages are from chapter 6, which covers part of the year 1844. The account of the dream ends on p.150.


Friday 17 February 2012

Pope Wednesday's Audience

Wednesday's Audience ___________________________________


On the 3 Last Words of Jesus Dying on the Cross 

"We Shall Never Fall Outside the Hands of God, Those Hands That Created Us"

 http://deaconjohn.posterous.com/visnews-  

VISnews 2/15/2012 Jesus Prayer Before Dying [Pope's Catechesis]



15-02-2012 - Anno XXI - Num. 34
Summary

- JESUS' PRAYER BEFORE DYING

Vatican City, 15 February 2012 (VIS) - For the second consecutive week the Holy Father focused his catechesis during his general audience on Jesus' prayer before dying, basing his remarks on three phrases Christ pronounced from the cross, as narrated in the Gospel of St. Luke. The audience was held in the Paul VI Hall in the presence of some 6,000 pilgrims from all over the world.




Jesus' first phrase: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing", was pronounced as soon as He had been crucified and while the soldiers were dividing His garments. "This first prayer to the Father", the Pope explained, "was a request to forgive His executioners". At the same time, however, "it is an interpretation of what is happening. The men who crucified Him 'do not know what they are doing'. In other words, Christ presents ignorance, 'not knowing', as a reason for requesting forgiveness of the Father, because that ignorance opens the way to conversion".



The second phrase: "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise", addressed to the "good thief" crucified at Christ's side, is "a word of hope", the Holy Father said. Jesus thereby reaffirmed "that God's goodness can touch us even in the final instant of existence, and that sincere prayer, even after a misspent life, encounters the open arms of the good Father Who awaits the return of His child".



"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit", the last words Christ pronounced, are "a prayer of 'entrustment', full of faith in God's love. Jesus' prayer before dying is as dramatic as its is for all men and women but, at the same time, it is pervaded by that profound calm which arises from faith in the Father and the desire to entrust oneself to Him completely".



"When life was about to leave Him, He sealed His final decision in a prayer. Jesus allowed Himself to be consigned 'into human hands', but it was into the hands of the Father that He placed His spirit. Thus, as John the Evangelist says, all things were accomplished, the supreme act of love was carried to the end".



"Jesus' words on the cross in the final instants of His earthly existence provide binding guidelines for our own prayer, but they also open the way to serene trust and firm hope. By asking the Father to forgive those who are crucifying Him, Jesus invites us to make the difficult gesture of praying for the people who do us wrong, ... that the light of God may illuminate their hearts. In other words, He invites us to adopt, in our prayer, the same attitude of mercy and love which God shows towards us", the Pope said.



"At the same time Jesus, at the extreme moment of death, entrusted Himself entirely into the hands of God the Father, communicating to us the certainty that, however difficult our trials ... or burdensome our suffering, we will never fall out of God’s hands, the hands which created us, and which support and accompany us on life’s journey".

Tuesday 14 February 2012

Methodius translated the whole Bible into Slavonic in eight months

httpfull-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.com201005sts-cyril-and-methodius-equal-to.html

Sts. Cyril and Methodius the Equal-to-the-Apostles and Enlighteners of the Slavs 
Christ is risen! Truly He is risen!
Sts. Cyril and Methodius the Equal-to-the-Apostles and Enlighteners of the Slavs - Commemorated on May 11 (http://christopherklitou.com/icon_11_may_cyril_methodius_enlighteners_of_the_slavs.htm)

"Saints Cyril and Methodius, Equals of the Apostles, and Enlighteners of the Slavs came from an illustrious and pious family living in the Greek city of Thessalonica. St Methodius was the oldest of seven brothers, St Constantine [Cyril was his monastic name] was the youngest. At first St Methodius was in the military and was governor in one of the Slavic principalities dependent on the Byzantine Empire, probably Bulgaria, which made it possible for him to learn the Slavic language. After living there for about ten years, St Methodius later received monastic tonsure at one of the monasteries on Mount Olympus (Asia Minor).



Tuesday, February 14, 2012 



Sts. Cyril and Methodius


Sketch 2012-02-09 (Anne Marie)
(d. 869; d. 884)

Legend has it that in a feverish period of activity, Methodius translated the whole Bible into Slavonic in eight months. He died on Tuesday of Holy Week, surrounded by his disciples, in his cathedral church.

Comment:

Holiness means reacting to human life with God’s love: human life as it is, crisscrossed with the  political and the cultural, the beautiful and the ugly, the selfish and the saintly. For Cyril and Methodius much of their daily cross had to do with the language of the liturgy. They are not saints because they got the liturgy into Slavonic, but because they did so with the courage and humility of Christ.

Quote:

“Even in the liturgy, the Church has no wish to impose a rigid uniformity in matters which do not involve the faith or the good of the whole community. Rather she respects and fosters the spiritual adornments and gifts of the various races and peoples.... Provided that the substantial unity of the Roman rite is maintained, the revision of liturgical books should allow for legitimate variations and adaptations to different groups, religions, and peoples, especially in mission lands” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 37, 38).

Sunday 12 February 2012

“Lorreto Chapel" Santa Fe, NM


 A friend from Scotland traveled in US visiting family.
She was delighted to be shown
THE "MIRACULOUS STAIRCASE"
Loretto Chapel
Santa FeNew Mexico.
Thanks to her for these Post Cards.


“Lorreto Chapel" Santa Fe, NM
The OUR LADY OF LIGHT CHAPEL (Loretto Chapel), fashioned after Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, was constructed in the 1870's to serve the Loretto Academy which was operated by the Sisters of Loretto.
Believed to be the first gothic structure west of the Mississippi, the Chapel had a design flaw: a conventional stairway to the choir loft could not be installed without adversely impacting the diminutive Chapel's seating capacity as well as its aesthetics.
Seeking divine guidance the Sisters made a Novena to their patron saint, Saint Joseph the Carpenter. As legend has it, upon the ninth and final day of the Novena a mysterious carpenter arrived to design and construct a circular stairway to the choir loft. The tools upon his donkey were just a saw, a T-square, a hammer and tubs in which to soak the wood.
His "miraculous stairway" contains thirty three steps in two full 360 degree turns. This stairway has no center support nor is it held from it's sides - it's full weight rest on its final tread.
Upon completion of the stairway the carpenter disappeared without seeking payment. No records have been found for the purchase of the materials with which the stairway was built. Many sisters believed the crafts­man to have been an embodiment of Saint Joseph the Carpenter.
Originally build without a railing its use was a daily reinforcement of faith by both sisters and students. In the 1880's the banister was added.
Engineers and architects marvel at the stairway; there is no known duplication of it's design.
Original Colored Pencil Art © by Michele M. K. Brokaw www.lorettochapel.com
MMKBROKAW@AOL.COM 






LORETTO CHAPEL
Santa Fe, NM
Front entrance of the Chapel showing the beautiful Rose Window. The staircase was built by an unknown carpenter who appeared in answer to the prayers of the Sisters of Loretto. 











THE "MIRACULOUS STAIRCASE"
Loretto Chapel
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Providing access to the choir loft, this circular staircase was constructed without using nails or any visible means of support. legend attributes the work to Saint Joseph since the carpenter appeared mysteriously in answer to the nun's prayers.

World Day of Prayer for the Sick


Extreme Unction Rogier Van der Weyden.

Saturday 11th February, Our Lady of Lourdes.
During the Community Mass
the Abbot conducted
the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.

Mass for the anointing of the Sick
During the Community Mass today, World Day of Prayer for the Sick, there be the anointing of the sick.
We will use one of the new Eucharistic Prayers appropriate for this Mass.

After the Gospel, the community will stand for the anointing. Those who wish to be anointed should remain seated.
Each one will be anointed on the forehead with a prayer of blessing.

At the end, the Principal celebrant washes his hands. The Prayer of the Faithful follows.
Rest of Mass as usual

Anointing of the Sick
Lord bless this oil and bless OlD'" sick brother/sister whom we will anoint with it.

Lay on hand.
Anoint head:
Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. R: Amen
Anoint hands:
May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up. R: Amen

Conditional:
If you are alive we pray: Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. R:
Amen.
May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up. R: Amen.



http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/Home/News-Releases/World-Day-of-Prayer-for-the-Sick

World Day of Prayer for the Sick

Bishop Hopes in Westminster Cathedral at a Mass for the World Day of Prayer for the Sick
Bishop Hope in Westminster Cathedral at a Mass
for the World Day of Prayer for the Sick



Pope Benedict XVI has released his message for the 2012 World Day of Prayer for the Sick. Falling on 11 February, the day's theme is "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you" (Lk 17:19).
The Holy Father focuses on the sacraments of healing; the Sacrament of Penance - the "medicine of confession" - and the Anointing of the Sick.
Raising up the latter, Pope Benedict says:
"This sacrament deserves greater consideration today both in theological reflection and in pastoral ministry among the sick. Through a proper appreciation of the content of the liturgical prayers that are adapted to the various human situations connected with illness, and not only when a person is at the end of his or her life (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1514), the Anointing of the Sick should not be held to be almost “a minor sacrament” when compared to the others. Attention to and pastoral care for sick people, while, on the one hand, a sign of God’s tenderness towards those who are suffering, on the other brings spiritual advantage to priests and the whole Christian community as well, in the awareness that what is done to the least, is done to Jesus 

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Saint Josephine Bakhita 8 Feb


 New Missal – Proper of Saints
8 February
Saint Josephine Bakhita, Virgin
From the Common of Virgins: For One Virgin (p. 1150).
Collect
O God, who led Saint Josephine Bakhita from abject slavery to the dignity of being your daughter and a bride of Christ, grant, we pray, that by her example
we may show constant love for the Lord Jesus crucified, remaining steadfast in charity
and prompt to show compassion.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever 


The New Missal includes the Collect of the Saint Josephine Bakhita.
The Principal Celebrant this morning was Abbot Joseph of Mount Saint Bernard.
He is leading our Annual Retreat at Nunraw.



saints.sqpn.com/saint-josephine-bakhita/   

Also known as
  • Giuseppina Bakhita
  • Madre Moretta
  • Sister Moretta
Profile
Born to a wealthy Sudanese family, she was kidnapped by slave-traders at age 9, and given the name Bakhita (lucky) by them. Sold and resold in the markets at El Obeid and Khartoum, finally purchased in 1883 by Callisto Legnani, Italian consul who planned to free her. She accompanied Legnani to Italy in 1885, and worked as a nanny for the family of Augusto Michieli. She was treated well in Italy and grew to love the country. An adult convert the Christianity, she joined the Church on 9 January 1890, she took the name of Josephine as a symbol of her new life.
She entered the Institute of Canossian Daughters of Charity in VeniceItaly in 1893, taking her vows on8 December 1896 in VeronaItaly and serving as a Canossian Sister for the next fifty years. Her gentle presence, her warm, amiable voice, and her willingness to help with any menial task were a comfort to the poor and suffering people who came to the door of the Institute. After a biography of her was published in 1930, she became a noted and sought after speaker, raising funds to support missions.
Born

Friday 3 February 2012

Presentation Candlemass St Luke 2:22-40

 

Presentation in the Temple - Bellini.bmp
Thursday, 02 February 2012

Presentation of Child Jesus in the Temple - Solemnity



Anniversary of the Foundation of
Sancta Maria Abbey - Nunraw
     Community Sermon - Fr. Raymond      
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Raymond . . .
Sent: Friday, 3 February 2012, 9:29
Subject:
Presentation  2012
No matter how far one travels back in time one finds everywhere and always the evidence of mankind’s instinctive need to offer sacrifice to the Divine.  Man has an innate need to take some living creature to represent his own life and kill and consume it in fire as a symbol of the gift of himself to his God.  The Jewish feast of the Presentation was nothing but the con-tinuance of this fundamental religious trait in the lives of God’s chosen people
For us who live in the fullness of God’s time, in the Christian Era, however, there is an added dimension to this feast.  The Victim offered on our behalf is That First Born, the First Born who is merely foreshadowed by all the previous victims.  He is The Christ himself, the only begotten of the Father.  And the offering of this First Born is not to be merely symbolised by the slaying of a lamb or a dove.  Our offering is himself, in all the fullness of tragic reality, the very victim who is sacrificed; and in this, since he is himself one of us, he represents the complete and perfect offering to his Heavenly Father of each and every one of us.
This whole episode in the temple is also shot through with beautiful symbolism.  We must ask ourselves why, for instance  were there two prophets, Simeon and Anna, and not just one? Would either one not have done?  And why was one male and one female?  And why were they old and not young?          By their duality of gender, man and woman, Simeon and Anna surely represent the whole of the human race welcoming its Saviour.  They are a reflection of the original couple, Adam and Eve; the founders of our race; the male and female  to whom the promise of this child was originally made so many centuries before in the Garden of Eden.  And by their old age this couple surely represents the fullness of the coming of age of God’s chosen people.  God’s designs are always fulfilled and never frustrated.  No matter how many of us are unfaithful, there will always be a faithful remnant. The acknowledgement by Simeon and Anna that the Messiah has come at last is the living proof that God’s call and choice of the Jews was fulfilled, at least in these two.  Here we can call to mind that also the beginning of the new Messianic era is likewise represented by man and woman, male and female, Joseph and Mary, of course.
Finally we may consider that, Simeon and Anna represent by their holiness the ultimate success and triumph of the work of Redemption; the work that was to be accomplished by this child;  the Child in whom, not only they, but all of us were chosen from the beginning to live holy and upright lives awaiting the fullness of our redemption.