Now, Master, you may let your servant go
in peace, according to your word,
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you prepared in sight of all the peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and glory for your people Israel.
A child causes Simeon to rejoice. Yet he is no ordinary child. This child has God for his Father. The people Israel know this Father from a distance. The Gentiles understand still less. But this child is for both Israel and the Gentiles. He will call all of us brothers. He will make us children of Mary his mother and invite us to cry out Abba, Father to God along with him, united in the Holy Spirit.
Just as the son of Sarah and Abraham did the impossible by being born so too does the birth of Jesus result from a miracle. A Virgin gives birth. A new Davidic king is born. He lives in perfect obedience to the Father because he comes from the Father. He does what we cannot because of who he is. He is miraculous. He is an unguessed gift. And he a what's himself with us. So it is natural, considering his origin, that he not only restores individuals but entire families and indeed the whole family of God, the Church, which is the new Israel. Family has always been among God's first priorities.
Whoever honors his father atones for sins,
and preserves himself from them.
When he prays, he is heard;
he stores up riches who reveres his mother.
Now finally we can live these words. We have the grace of the perfectly obedient Son within us. This grace enables us to live together in families, in nations, and in the Church.
And over all these put on love,
that is, the bond of perfection.
And let the peace of Christ control your hearts,
the peace into which you were also called in one body.
As a consequence we must stop acting selfishly, but to act only as Jesus would act, doing only those things deserving of his name, not on our own strength but in the power of that same name.
And whatever you do, in word or in deed,
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him
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