Church of Jesus Christ of the Universe

By Mauro

2 February 2023

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple
Mal 3, 1-4; Sal 23; Heb 2, 14-18; Lk 2, 22-40

In the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple that we are celebrating today, we see again clearly the greatness of God’s plan that He had forever. It is the plan to recapitulate everything in Christ, to bring to completion all the law, the Law given to Moses for the people of Israel. We can clearly recognise the attitude of God who wants to collaborate with humanity even though He has foreseen everything, He has sent us everything we need and has made everything ready; everything is an action of God in collaboration with man.

In my opinion, the core of this feast is the royal priesthood: Mary and Joseph present Jesus in the temple; they offer Him to the Father; they are priests who offer and elevate. Following their mission that God had foreseen for them, they initiate the new covenant, which will no longer be made by the sacrifice of two turtledoves or pigeons, but by the Son of God who is offered in the Temple. In that offering, there is also their self-offering. They offer Jesus, knowing what would happen to Him because the Archangel Gabriel had explained it to them.

The readings also highlight the difference between those who participate in spirit, in collaboration with God and those who only perform rituals. Simeon and Hannah participate. If you listen closely to what Simeon announces, you understand everything. The spirit had told Simeon everything. He recognises the salvation of Israel, the Messiah, in a child and in a man and a woman who carry Him in their arms. There is the passage where Simeon blesses Mary and Joseph. He is not a priest; he is just a righteous man. It is beautiful to see how Mary Most Holy, who knows that she is the Mother of God, and St. Joseph, who knows he is the guardian of the Son of God, welcome that blessing. They do not say: “I am greater than you, kneel down before me!” No, they welcome the blessing and ponder in their heart all that Simeon and Hannah say about the child.

This is openness to God. They know everything because St. Gabriel the Archangel told them, but they continue to listen to the voice of God speaking through a righteous man. They don’t say, “We already know everything; we will explain things to you”, but they listen to him. All of us ought to learn this from them: to recognise the voice of God. Knowing something more than others, because it has been revealed to us, does not give us the right not to listen.

The royal priesthood, as Mary Most Holy and St. Joseph experienced it – in the Scriptures, there is also the story of Hannah who offered her son Samuel[1] – was already royal priesthood, but everything must come to completion. Here we understand the importance of each of us and our response (to God), in which we must believe that God is working, that God has foreseen all things and that it is God’s will. Thus, we must remain open in spirit, do what we recognise for us, by putting God at the centre of our life, and thus participate in rewriting history; in this way, we bring things to completion.

I asked myself how Christians experience the sacraments. With this faith? Or do they perform them like rituals? Think about what baptism would be like if we lived it as Mary Most Holy and Saint Joseph did! Think of Communion! All the sacraments! God would work in them, and He could, through those sacraments, explain things to us, take us further, open us, make us understand and increase our love for Him, for life and for our neighbour. We have everything, but we ought to live it.

It is not we who fulfil things but Jesus with our collaboration in His living presence in these special times. But what is it that still needs to be brought to completion? Jesus’ glorious return, the whole of Revelation. We cannot understand Revelation if we read it only in bits and pieces. Revelation must be fulfilled. What do we have to do? The first step we must take is to live in universal communion with the Heavenly Church. We are not in Moses’ times when there was a burning fire, the tables of the law. We see Jerusalem coming down from Heaven. We must approach the Heavenly Jerusalem in every Holy Mass, in every moment of the day, always and in everything we do. In this way we will fulfil it; we will be living Eucharist, the Sacrament of Salvation in our lives and in everything we do. Then, we collaborate with God; then, we too are those who offer, who present everything to God through our royal or ministerial priesthood.

To do this, as we have said many times, true faith is needed, not like those who say jokingly: “I am a believer, but I do not participate”. I speak of living faith, which focuses on why we were created, where we are going and what we are doing. We do not put worldly life at the centre but God. With that awareness, we gradually draw primary energy into our lives and push away disintegrating energy.[2] By living like this we become a blessing, we can put into practice everything that the Gospel says: “Bless, do not curse, pray for your persecutors and love your enemies”.[3] If we do not live like this, we will not be able to grow. We will not be able to love our enemy for more than three minutes, while we are reflecting, but as soon as we meet him, we will kick him. To love our enemy seriously and to give our life for him is only possible if we live with faith, for then God works our transformation so that we reach forgiveness. None of us can forgive if it is not God who forgives within us. It is impossible for man, but nothing is impossible for God.[4]

It is up to us to fulfil this; everything else has already been fulfilled: Jesus Christ did it. After Him, all the Saints, all the Church and all the righteous are there to prepare His glorious return and to complete the recapitulation of all things in Christ. This is our mission! Mary and Joseph knew their mission and fulfilled it in faith. Then, they listened and pondered Simeon’s words; they forgave Jesus in the temple when He told them, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Lk 2,49 NIV), and they pondered it in their heart. They had to escape to Egypt, at times they were hungry, and they pondered everything in their heart. They remained faithful to their mission for their whole life. We are called to be faithful to ours, and we have received all the instructions to do so. I will repeat the Gospel: “bless, live the beatitudes, be joyful and transform evil into good”.[5]

I will add some points for us: let us always baptise, love and be transformed until we become pure love, as I said yesterday. Let us offer ourselves to God, be righteous and live in universal communion, and we will live according to these three cornerstones. We will resist until shedding our blood to live in communion. “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.  And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away” (Mt 5, 29-32).

However, what makes all of us stumble is this: our thoughts. Tearing the head off is difficult, though; let us leave it to God, let us allow Him to transform our thoughts! Let us thank God for the trials He has given us, instead of running away from them, judging people harshly and choosing who we choose to receive the Holy Communion with. If we do so, we will transform the Earth. Let us receive Communion with whoever God puts before us, not with whom we choose. St. James speaks clearly about the tongue, which is like the rudder that steers a large ship.[6]

We believe that God is doing all this, that history is not chaos, that God intervenes in history and does not abandon us because He promised it to us, and we want to participate with Him the way we are, as best we can in every event He places before us. We will remain faithful to what He asked of us, which we have accepted regardless of how things are going. Then, remaining faithful to the end, let us say like Saint Paul: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4,7). This will lead us to our full realisation; it will lead us and all that surrounds us to fulfilment.

On this feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, I ask Mary Most Holy to present each one of us in the Temple and to also present the Foundation, the Church of Jesus Christ in the Temple, so that every member of this Church truly becomes an “Alter Christus”, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

[1] See 1Sam 1,1-28

[2] For more information about primary energy and disintegrating energy see Stefania Caterina, “Rewriting History – Vol. II – The Universe and Its Inhabitants”, Part One, Chap. 3, available on, https://www.lucidellesodo.it/en/

[3] See Mt 5,44; Lk 6,27, paraphrased

[4] See Lk 1,37

[5] See Footnote 3

[6] See James 3,1-12