Introduction to Lauds - Memoria of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (November 21).

The memoria of the presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary was originally a feast of the dedication of a church of Our Lady in Jerusalem. The Apocryphal writings relate that St. Joachim and St. Anne brought their 3-year-old daughter Mary to the Temple in Jerusalem in fulfillment of their vow, so that she might be educated there together with other girls, consecrated to God’s service. 

 
Our Lady herself once confided to St. Bridget that it was the virtues of humility, charity and obedience which she practiced in the temple that granted her grace and with great effort on her part i.e. constant prayers, ardent longing, tears and mortification.  

St. Augustine’s sermon taken from the Office of Reading, gives us a good reflection. He says, Mary was ‘by Christ created that Christ in her might be created…She did the Father’s will…and it is a greater thing for her that she was Christ’s disciple than that she was His mother.’

We pray that we may imitate Mary by becoming detached from all earthly things and present ourselves today without reserve thus being a disciple who does the will of God the Father.   

So as sisters and brothers of Jesus wanting to do the will of the Father in heaven, we pray.