Homily for the Feast of Presentation
February 2, 2025
The Reward of Perseverance
There
are many virtues needed for a life of holiness, and one could debate which one
is the most important: humility? Charity? Patience? All of these are critical,
but I would add one more, an often-forgotten virtue: perseverance. Every saint
had this virtue, often in heroic ways.
Take,
for example, one of the more recent Canadian saints with an interesting
connection to Connecticut: St. Andre Bessette. He was born in the mid 1800s to
a simple blue-collar family. As a young man, Andre was devout but a little lost
– he wasn’t good at school, had poor health, and couldn’t find a trade that he
excelled in. He ended up moving from Montreal to upstate Connecticut for a
time, where he worked in a textile mill. But finding no success there, either,
he returned home and asked to enter a religious community called the
Congregation of the Holy Cross (which is the order that runs Notre Dame
University).
Initially,
they turned him down due to poor health and lack of education. But his pastor
intervened, sending him back with a letter that said, “Please accept him – I am
sending you a saint!” So they allowed him in, but only to be the porter – the
one who answered the door and handled the mail.
But
pretty soon, remarkable miracles started to happen. People would come, asking
for prayers, and Br. Andre would pray with them – and miraculous healings would
occur. This led to his fame starting to spread, as people believed he had the
gift of healing – so he needed to deflect the attention! He began to credit all
the healings to the intercession of St. Joseph, telling people “Ite Ad Joseph”
– Go to St. Joseph for your miracle!
His
devotion to St. Joseph grew, until the Holy Spirit inspired him to want to
build a giant church dedicated to this great saint. But this poor, uneducated
man had no way to make it happen. So he started to beg for nickels and dimes
for the project – and over the course of several decades, he raised millions of
dollars through only nickels and dimes! The Church was finally built – called
the Oratory of St. Joseph in Montreal – and it is still the largest church in
the world dedicated to St. Joseph. But what perseverance! First to try to enter
the religious order, then to build this tremendous church. Every saint needs to
persevere, because holiness does not come quickly or easily.
Neither
does the Messiah. The two unique characters from today’s feast, Simeon and
Anna, are perfect examples of perseverance. Every single day these two holy
people, advanced in years, came to the Temple in the expectation that God would
send the Savior. For centuries men and women had hoped for the same thing…and
it seemed like God was not listening, like He was distant, like He had
forgotten His promises. Many people, perhaps, lost hope – but not Simeon and
Anna. They would persevere, day in and day out, and their perseverance was
rewarded as they were blessed to hold the infant Savior in their arms.
There
are four ways in which these two saints persevered – they persevered in prayer,
in sacrifice, in vigilance, and in their vocation. Let’s examine each one and
apply it to our lives.
First,
they persevered in prayer. The Gospel describes Simeon as “righteous and
devout, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.” Certainly he lived in intense union
with God – even if his desired Messiah seemed distant? Yet he prayed, not to
force God to do his will, but to conform his will to God’s. If God would give
him the gift of seeing the Savior, then praise Him for that gift. But if not,
praise God for His mysterious will.
This is
so important for us. Jesus gives us several parables instructing us to
persevere in prayer – He says, “seek and you will find, ask and you shall receive.”
But a lot of people give up on prayer because God hasn’t given them what they
wanted. God, are You even listening?
But we
must persevere. First of all, we must remember that God’s ways are not our
ways. If we pray for healing but someone dies, then we must see it from the
vantage point of eternity and realize that a soul is now, hopefully, rejoicing
forever with Him. If we pray to get into a certain college but get rejected,
that means that God has beautiful things in store for us at our second-choice
college. But also, we must remember that the point of prayer isn’t to get stuff
from God, but to draw closer to His Heart. When I was a kid, my religious
education teacher asked us all a question: does God listen to the prayer of
Mother Teresa more than a criminal? She said no, God listens to all of our
prayers equally. But for some reason that answer didn’t sit well with me. Much
later I realized why: because Mother Teresa is more intimately united to God
than a criminal, she knows what to ask for! Mother Teresa asks God for grace to
be holy, while many ordinary folks ask only for money and healing and physical
goods. God will grant those, but only if they are helps for the ultimate goal
of holiness.
So, we
must persevere in prayer no matter how difficult or dry. St. John of the Cross
used to record what inspirations he received in prayer – and for years, he
recorded only one word each day: “Nada” – “Nothing”. But he still showed up and
prayed, and eventually experienced deep union with God. As Woody Allen said,
“80% of life is just showing up” – and most of prayer is just showing up, too.
Simeon showed up, day-in and day-out, and eventually had the incredible joy of
holding the Savior in his arms.
Secondly,
we must persevere in daily sacrifice. The Gospel speaks of Anna “worshipping
night and day with fasting and prayer.” Here was an 84-year-old woman
who made sacrifice a part of her daily routine. It’s easy enough to sacrifice
for 40 days in Lent, but every Christian must make it a part of every day.
How will any of us achieve holiness or spiritual strength if we give in to
every single desire that comes across our path?
Greatness
is only accomplished through sacrifice. In the 1940s, there was a young woman
from the Czeck Republic named Sara Salkahazi, who was quite the intriguing
woman – a semi-atheist, engaged to be married, a liberal chain-smoking
journalist. She was very interested in helping the poor, so on a lark she
attended a meeting held by a religious community called the Sisters of Social
Service who spent their lives ministering to the poor. As the nuns were
explaining their mission, Sara felt a burning desire to join them – but they
initially rejected her, because she was an atheist chain-smoker! They said,
“Start practicing the faith and give up smoking for a year, and you can join.”
Both were immensely difficult for her, especially the smoking – she was totally
addicted and struggled every day to overcome the habit. But through
self-sacrifice, she was able to do so. After a year she joined the congregation
and began working to save Jews who were threatened by the Nazi occupation. She
ended up saving over 100 Jews before she was caught and killed as a martyr. She
is now Bl. Sara Salkahazi, who was only able to achieve greatness through
sacrifice. We must persevere in saying “no” to ourselves daily if we wish, like
Anna, to be able to see God.
We also
persevere in vigilance. It is said that Simeon was “awaiting the consolation of
Israel” – he wanted to find the Christ, and did anything to find Him. We,
however, have the gift of grace – we already possess Christ in our soul if we
are in the state of grace. So we persevere in vigilance in a different way. We
do not have to find Christ – He is present in the Eucharist, in the Catholic
Church, in the Word of God. But we have to make sure we never lose Him, through
sin or faithlessness.
One of
the greatest spiritual truths is that we can trust God immensely – but we must
never, ever trust ourselves. We never reach a place in our spiritual life where
we won’t be tempted. The great desert father, St. Anthony the Abbot, had given
up everything to serve Christ as a hermit in the desert. One day he was walking
with a companion when they chanced upon a bag of gold. The companion said, “Look!
A bag of gold. We could give this to the poor.” But Anthony felt a glimmer of
greed arise in his heart, so he made the sign of the Cross over the bag, and it
disappeared in a puff of smoke – it had been a temptation of the Evil One. We,
too, must be vigilant about what we read and watch, with whom we converse and where
we go, that we too may do everything to possess Him alone.
Finally,
we must persevere in our vocations. Many married couples speak about the “seven-year
itch” – that after seven years, we get bored with our spouses and struggle to
persevere. We get bored with our jobs, restless and burnt-out. But sometimes we’re
just called to persevere. The grass can seem greener on the other side, but this
job or vocation is the labor to which we are called. Simeon and Anna showed up,
day in and day out, faithful to their calling. So – persevere in that difficult
task God has appointed for you. Perhaps you’re a caregiver for someone who’s
ill. Perhaps you work at a job you dislike, but you need it for your family’s sake.
Perhaps you have a challenging marriage. This is your sanctification – so persevere.
What a
beautiful message from the two saints of today’s feast – St. Simeon and Anna.
What perfect examples of perseverance! Persevere in prayer, in sacrifice, in
vigilance, in your vocation. And may we, too, be found worthy to embrace Christ
at the end of our lives, as did these saints.
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