“Every child is an arrow shot out of the bow of its
mother, but its target is God. Children
have come through mothers, but they do not belong to them. Mary acknowledges this claim of divinity on
her Child by presenting Him back again to God, as she offers the temple of His
Body in the temple made by hands.
Mary
here anticipated the joy of every mother who brings her child to the baptismal
font, where God may claim His own. But
in the case of Mary the Child was claimed for sacrifice, as the aged Simeon
said that He was a sign to be contradicted, and the cross is the contradiction.
Mary
was even told that a sword her own soul would pierce. That would happen when her Son on the cross
would have His heart pierced with a lance.
Through His Body and her soul would go that one stroke of the
sword. She was the only mother who ever
brought a life into the world to die.
It
is not so much our presents that God wants from us, as it is our presence, as
we offer our life to Him.” Archbishop
Fulton Sheen (The Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary)
