Daily Reflections ...

Various people recognise Jesus as Saviour and Messiah in the Lukan Christmas story. Firstly, the angels announce that a Saviour has been born. Secondly, the shepherds spread the news of this miraculous birth, and in today’s reading, it is the turn of Simeon, who was righteous and devout, to praise God, saying, ‘for my eyes have seen your salvation…. a light for the revelation to the Gentiles’.

‘The Holy Spirit rested on Simeon’, and he lived in the expectation that he would see the Messiah before he died. Because of his openness to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, Simeon, whose name means one who hears, recognises the presence of the child Jesus and publicly extols him as the long-awaited Messiah.

Just as Jesus tells Peter when he proclaims that he is the Messiah that it is not human wisdom that has revealed this, ‘but my Father in heaven’ (Matthew 16:17), so too, we need to allow the Holy Spirit to rest on us and to be alert to what God wants to reveal to each one of us.

‘Let us sit at the school of the Holy Spirit so that he can teach us all things. Let us invoke him each day, so that he can remind us to make God’s gaze upon us our starting point, to make decisions by listening to his voice, and to journey together as Church, docile to him and open to the world.’ (Pope Francis – Pentecost Homily 2022)

By Mike Humphrys