Has the cross done what it was prophetically promised to do?

By Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor

A reflection on the daily readings, for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, by Father Perry.

+ A warning!

A day of reckoning!

Or to put it into contemporary familial terms: “Just wait until your father gets home!”

Biblical literature is peculiar unto its own. It often uses styles of writing to teach, to make a point, to call people back to a better way of living, and to goodness.

The book of Malachi is no different; it is the third and final chapter.

Malachi “lowers the boom.”

And so the final verses of Malachi just 20 verses later end this book by describing that “terrible day” when the final prophet would finally come.

That final verse describes the transformational change that would heal and restore and bring Israel back to life.

And in a most beautiful way, striking at the family — the very root of the community — Malachi says that the prophet would declare that day of the Lord when: “He will turn the heart of fathers to their sons, and the heart of their sons to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with utter destruction.”

This to be the final and direct promise and warning meant to give that last chance, that last try.

+ And in that powerful and tantalizing space comes this beautiful and terrible Lucan scene — the Presentation of the Lord — 40 days after the birth of the Christ (Dec. 25 to Feb. 2).

What made it beautiful was the intimate and penetrating words both filled with gratitude and prophetic, spoken by Simeon, who in his own words accepted death now, since the promise revealed to him by the Holy Spirit was now taking place: “That he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord.”

And terrible, because Simeon would also reveal that there was “a sword” that would pierce the heart of Mary — of us all?

Oh, even at the Presentation of the Lord in the temple there is a subtle but clear reference to the Cross to come!

And, not to be outdone, an 84-year-young woman also spoke, giving thanks and proclaiming that the time of Redemption had come — thanks to this little child.

And how would this Redemption come. How?

Again, for us after the fact — a not so subtle reference to the Cross, and noted clearly in the Letter to the Hebrews — his death would destroy the power of death and give the promise of life eternal.

He would clearly “be tested by what he suffered.”

One wonders if indeed this great, beautiful and terrible moment in time has done what it was prophetically promised to do.

Has it, indeed, turned hearts back to our fathers and our fathers to us; back to our mothers and our mothers to us. Back to our brothers and our sisters, and even back to ourselves?

One wonders.

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Father Perry D. Leiker is the 13th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at pleiker@stbernard-church.com. Follow Father Perry on Twitter: @MrDeano76.