A Sign of Contradiction
by Father Paul A. Duffner, O.P.
“And when the days of Purification were fulfilled according to the Law of Moses, they took Him up to
Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord, as it is written in the Law of the Lord: ‘Every male that opens the womb shall be called
Holy to the Lord;’ and to offer for sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or
two young pigeons'” (Luke 2:22-24).
In the Fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary,
we reflect on Two (2) Requirements of Jewish Law:
the Purification of the Mother after
Childbirth, and
the Presentation of the Firstborn Son
in the Temple.
The Purification
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The Jewish Ritual of Purification by Immersion, the Mikvah, is undoubtedly a Foreshadowing of Baptism.
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The Law of Moses prescribed that a Woman, after Childbirth, was to keep-to-herself for
Forty (40) Days if her child were a Boy, and Eighty Days if it were a
Girl, after which she was to present herself in the Temple for the Ceremony of Purification.
At that time she was to make an Offering to the Temple, which for the Poor was
Two (2) Doves or Pigeons (Leviticus 12:1-8). The
Purification referred to was strictly a "Legal” Uncleanness, and did
not imply any Moral Fault in Childbirth. Our Blessed
Mother had Conceived by the Power of the Holy
Spirit, and was not Subject to the Law of Purification. Nevertheless
she, the Purest of the Pure, presented
herself for the Purification Rite just as all other Mothers, giving an
Example of Deep Humility and of Perfect Obedience
to the Law. Too, since the Virginal Birth of
her Son was not known outside of the
Holy Family, they wished to avoid any possibility of Scandal by fulfilling
this Customary Observance.
The Presentation
According to Jewish Law, if the Firstborn were a Male, he belonged to
God, and had to be offered to Him. This was in Acknowledgment of
God's Sovereignty and Right to the Firstborn; and
in Memory of the fact that God had Spared the Firstborn
of Jewish Families on the Night of the First Passover. The
Firstborn Son, however, was Redeemed or Bought-back by offering Five (5) Shekels
to the Temple.
As the Holy Family awaited their turn amid the numerous families that had arrived for
the same ceremonies, there was in the Temple a Saintly Man named Simeon, to whom it had been Revealed by the
Holy Spirit that he would not see Death
until he had seen “the Anointed of the Lord”. And beholding the
Child in Mary's Arms, he recognized
Him as the Messiah he had longed to see. The yearnings of his
Heart fulfilled, he took the Child in his arms
and exclaimed:
“Now dismiss your servant in peace, O Lord, according to Your Word; Because my eyes have seen the
Salvation which You have prepared for all Nations, a Light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the Glory of Your People
Israel” (Luke 2:29-32).
Mary and Joseph, wondering at this unusual
occurrence, were filled with Joy at Simeon's
Praise of their Child, as are all Parents when their Children are
Praised. Yet, as they were marveling at these words, Simeon turned to
Mary, the One (1) True Parent of the
Child, and uttered this Fearful Prophesy:
“Behold, this Child is destined for the Fall and for the Rise of many in Israel, and for a Sign that
shall be Contradicted. And your own soul a Sword shall Pierce, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed”
(Luke 2:34-35).
A Sign of Contradiction
This tiny Infant will be a Light to the
Gentiles, and the Glory of Israel; but
He will also be the Occasion for the Rise and Fall of many. Through Faith
in Him, many in Israel will Rise to New Life in
Him; others, Blinded by
Pride and Hatred, will Oppose
His Mission, and seek to Trample
His Teaching underfoot.
This Child will be a "Sign of Contradiction",
a Visible Sign of Conflict between Opposing Camps - those with
Him, and those against Him. In His
Presence there can be no Neutrality, for He is a
Light that Men cannot ignore, a Light that reaches to one's Inmost Being, and forces
one to Take-a-Stand for Him or against Him.
“He that is not with Me, is against Me”. (Matthew12:20).
For many He is the "Corner Stone" on which their Life
is built; for others, He is a Stumbling Block, according as
Men accept Him or turn-their-backs on Him. That is
as True Today as when Christ Walked the Hills of Palestine, for the Sign that
He is, and the Sign of His Miracles, even
His Resurrection - is Denied and Reasoned
Away by some. While He has been the Source of
Grace and Sanctification for those who accept His
Teaching and become His Followers, so
He has been the Occasion of Rejection and
Rebellion on the part of those who have found His Teaching to stand-in-the-way of
their Pride and Concupiscence. The History of
Twenty (20) Centuries has fully confirmed the Predictions of Simeon that this
Child would be a “Sign of Contradiction”.
And the Blows that lash-out-against Our Blessed Lord,
also Strike His Mother.
His Suffering and Death would
Pierce the Heart of
Mary with a Great Sword of Sorrow, so that through
Him and through her, many Hearts would
be moved to declare themselves either for or against Him and
His Message.
The Church - A Sign of Contradiction
The Institution which Christ founded, like Himself,
is a "Sign of Contradiction" to the Wisdom of the World.
It will meet the same Rejection, the same
Opposition by the Kingdom of the World. “If they have
persecuted Me, they will persecute you also” (John 15:20). Just as Jesus
Suffered for Three (3) Hours the
Terrible Torture of Calvary, so
His Mystical Body, the
Church, underwent Three (3) Centuries of
Persecution, which were but a Continuation of Calvary. And as after
Three (3) Days, Jesus rose from the
Dead, Glorious and Immortal, so
after Three (3) Centuries of Persecution
His Mystical Body, the Church, rose from its
Underground Existence to a New Freedom, and began to spread throughout the World.
Yet, if the Church, the Kingdom of God on Earth, was
Liberated after Centuries of Persecution, that does
not mean that the Kingdom of the World was overthrown. While
its Leader, the Devil, was Conquered
by the Passion and Death of
Jesus, he is allowed to Prowl about the World “like a
Roaring Lion looking for someone to devour” (1Peter 5:8). If the Visible
Conflict between the World Power and the
Church ceased for a time under the Emperor Constantine, the Hidden
Conflict, that Battle for
Souls between Christ in His Mystical Body,
and the Devil and his Collaborators, continues on
with the same Intensity. And the Evil One's Collaborators include not only the
Countless Number of Fallen Angels under
his Dominion, but a Great Number of Humans whom
he has Deceived and who are working for
his Cause.
For this reason, as Christ is a "Sign of Contradiction"
to the World He came to Redeem, so the
Church, His Mystical Body, will be in
Conflict with the Spirit of the World, in its Efforts to hand-down the Message of
Christ throughout the Ages. In addition, each individual Christian
will be a "Sign of Contradiction" amid the Allurements
and Maxims of this World, in the measure that he lives his Christian
Vocation.
The Root of this Division
As Pope John Paul II pointed out, the Root of this Division between the Kingdom of
God and the Kingdom of the World, lies in a
Corruption of the Idea and the Experience of Freedom “conceived not as a Capacity for
realizing the Truth of God’s Plan in their life, but an Autonomous Power of Self-Affirmation, often against others, for one’s Selfish
Well Being”
(Familiaris
Consortio, n. 6).
Perhaps at no time in the Twenty (20) Centuries of the
Christian Era, has there been such a Distortion of the
True Meaning of Freedom as in our own day. It follows from a Widespread
Rejection of the Gospel,
“the Truth that makes one Free” (John 8:32). Today, influenced by the
Secular Humanism of this Century, the Freedoms
guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution are interpreted by the Courts and Legislative Bodies
of our Country as the Right to take the life of the unborn, the Right to seek the Physician’s
aid in ending one's own life, the Right of the Media
to publish and telecast immoral matter, the Right of our Educational System to
exclude religion from public education, the Right to publish
pornographic filth, etc.
Thus, the History of the Church is but a History of the
Struggle between Freedoms that are in Mutual Conflict, which, as our
Holy Father points out, corresponds to the well known expression of Saint Augustine, a
Conflict of Two (2)
Loves:
the Love of God, to the Point of Disregarding Self..
the Love of Self, to the Point of Disregarding
God ..
The Cross - A Sign of Contradiction
The Love that Jesus spoke of in
His Farewell Address has the dimension of Sacrifice,
the Sacrifice He was about to make on
Calvary the following day. “Greater love than this no one
has, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Love,
as the World understands it is essentially Self-Seeking;
Love in the Christian Sense is essentially
Self-Giving .... Self-Sacrificing.
The Division between those whose First Love
is God, and those whose First
Love is Self - might also be expressed as the Division between those who accept the place of the
Cross in the following of Christ, and those who
Reject all Sacrifice except it be for Personal Gain.
No one has spoken of the Wisdom of the Cross
in the Christian Life more eloquently than Saint Paul in his Epistle to
the Corinthians, some of whom had failed to grasp this fundamental point of his teaching.
“The Message of the Cross is complete Absurdity to those
who are headed for Ruin, but to those of us who are on the Way to Salvation it is the
Power of God .... The Jews demand Signs (Miracles), and the Greeks Wisdom, but we preach
Christ Crucified - to the Jews a Stumbling Block and to the Gentiles Foolishness; but to
those who are Called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the Power of God and the Wisdom of God”
(1Corinthians 1:18,22).
Those who are on the way to Salvation see the Cross
as “the Power of God,” because it has
conquered the Devil and Sin. When we speak of
the “Cross” in this context, we refer not to the Wood Instrument on which
Christ Died, although that is a most
Precious Relic; but rather the Life-Giving
Passion and Death of the
Savior on the Cross, and the untold
Suffering He underwent on our Behalf.
And because of that Life-Giving Death, the
Cross - i.e., the Trials of Daily Life - has
a Redeeming value when borne in Union with the Passion
of our Divine Savior. All this, however, is Sheer Folly to one without the
Supernatural Gift of Faith, as Saint Thomas Aquinas points out:
“The Message of Christ’s Cross contains something
which to the Human Mind seems impossible - that God should Die, or that the Almighty
should give Himself up into the Power of Violent Men. It also contains things which seem
contrary to Human Wisdom, for instance, someone being able to flee from Contradictions and
yet not doing so” (Commentary 1Corinthians).
In the Old Testament, God often Manifested
His Presence by Miraculous Signs of various sorts. Mindful of this, the
JEWS in the time of Saint Paul demanded some Miraculous Manifestation to
Prove God's approval of Paul's Preaching
Christ's Redeeming Passion. For them the
Wisdom of the Cross was a Scandal,
a Stumbling Block. Their Attitude was an Obstacle
to the Gift of Faith, for they Imposed Limits on how they would receive
God's Revelation.
As for the learned GREEKS - the Rationalists of Saint Paul's day - they looked upon themselves as
the Masters of Truth, so that anything that could not be proved by Logical Argument
they Rejected. Hence they Failed
to attain a Knowledge of God
despite the way God revealed Himself in the
Scriptures and in the Wonders of Nature. To them apply the words of the
Prophet Isaiah:
“With the Ear you will Hear and not Understand; and
Seeing you will See and will not Perceive. For the Heart of this People has been Hardened”
(Isaiah 6:9).
Because of this, God Willed to reveal Himself,
His Truth, His Love - to those who have
Faith, and to do so in a way that better reflects
Divine Wisdom, through the Preaching of the Cross
(1Corinthians 1:21). How aptly our Savior's Words apply:
“Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, to You I offer praise; for You have hidden these things (the Mysteries
of the Kingdom) from the Learned and the Clever, and have revealed them to Little Ones”, that is, to the
Disciples.
The Wisdom of God’s Plan of Redemption,
therefore, is a Sign of Contradiction to the Worldly
Mind, for the Cross is at the very
Heart of the Christian Message. In that
Plan of Salvation, God uses things which to Man's
Mind seem Foolish and
Weak, precisely so that His Wisdom and
Power will be all the more Manifest shining through our Human Weakness.
If, therefore, we are to Conquer with Jesus, if we are to seek
His Help in overcoming some Grave Problem in ourselves or others, we must
not Forget that it was on the Cross that He
Conquered. It is through the Crosses of Life,
borne in Union with Him that He continues to
Conquer.
“For My Thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My Ways, says the Lord. As high as the Heavens
are above the Earth, so high are My Ways above your ways and My Thought above your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8).
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