The Presentation of the Virgin Mary

The feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary recalls the special place of Mary in the history of salvation.

We have oral tradition and non-canonical books that provide historical testimony of this fact.

Two sites give us archaeological evidence of this tradition: one is the town of Sepphoris, in the custody of our Congregation, the Monks of the IVE, and the second is the Church of Saint Anne in Jerusalem, the place where, according to tradition, Mary was born and where the temple still remains.

In the time of Jesus, being childless was seen as a sign of curse, a sign that people had not been blessed. The grandparents of Jesus, Joachim and Anne, suffered from this and made a promise to God to offer their child to His service. Although they were old, God gave them a daughter, Mary, who was then offered to God in His service.

This school of Temple virgins in Jerusalem formed an altar guild that fulfilled necessary tasks at the Temple. These tasks included sewing and creating vestments, washing the vestments of the priests, which were regularly stained with animal blood, preparing liturgical linen, weaving the veil of the Temple, and, most importantly, engaging in liturgical prayer.

Jewish and Catholic traditions hold that this school for Israelite virgins was completed by the age of about 14, and at this time, they were dismissed.

There were also older women, perhaps widows, such as the prophetess Anna, who served as teachers and governesses for the virgins under their care.

Exodus 38:8 mentions women who “watch (צָבָא) at the door of the tabernacle.”

“Now Heli was very old, and he heard all that his sons did to all Israel: and how they lay with the women that waited (צָבָא) at the door of the tabernacle” (1 Samuel 2:22, D-R).

The third and final reference to these liturgical women is in 2 Maccabees: "And the virgins also that were shut up, came forth, some to High Priest Onias, and some to the walls, and others looked out of the windows. And all, holding up their hands towards heaven, made supplication" (2 Macc 3:19-20).

Rabbinic Jewish sources also record how, when the Romans sacked Jerusalem in AD 70, the Temple virgins leapt into the flames so as not to be abducted by the heathen soldiers: “The virgins who were weaving threw themselves into the flames” (Pesikta Rabbati 26, 6).

In The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as described by Ven. Anne Catherine Emmerich, she recounts how Mary was brought to the Temple at the tender age of three by Joachim and Anne. There, Mary attended to the priests and Levites in the sacred ministry of the Temple, along with other consecrated virgins, for several years until her betrothal to Joseph. It was there that she continued to receive her education from older Temple women in whose care she had been placed.

There is solid tradition that cannot be denied that the Blessed Virgin Mary was consecrated to God from her youth, as we proclaim as Catholics.

The second thing to remark upon is that the Gospel tells us where the greatness of Mary resides. She was great not because she bore the Son of God, but because she heard the voice of God and put it into practice.

Let us honor and remember today the consecration of Mary, but let us also imitate her virtues. She was attentive to the voice of God and put it into practice.