Mary at the Presentation: When Suffering Isn’t a Sign of Failure, by Michele Chronister

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image: The Presentation in the Temple, illuminated manuscript by Follower of the Egerton Master (French / Netherlandish, active about 1405 – 1420) / The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. Ludwig IX 5, fol. 69 / Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

By Michele Chronister, Catholic Exchange, Feb. 2, 2021

Michele Chronister is a wife, and mother to three little girls and one little one in heaven. …

As a young mother, holding my first child in my arms, I remember thinking often of Mary going through the various “rites of passage” of her time and faith. When my oldest child was baptized, I was in the early throes of (undiagnosed) postpartum depression (PPD). There was such tremendous comfort and normalcy found in her Baptism. The words were familiar, the rite was familiar, and the priest radiated joy.

This experience of finding consolation as a new mother led to deeper contemplation of Mary’s experience as a new mother. Surely, Mary knew about the custom of presenting a firstborn son in the Temple. She must have been so happy and felt so relieved to have one aspect of her experience, as a new mother, feel normal.

But Jesus’s presentation was not the same as every other little Jewish boy’s, and even that moment was infused with suffering. ….

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