A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. The scene is at the temple, and Jesus glanced up and saw the rich putting their offerings into the treasury and also a poor widow putting in two copper coins. When Jesus saw this, he said, I assure you, this poor widow has put in more than all the rest. They made contributions out of their surplus, but she, from her want, her need, has given what she could not afford, every penny that she had to live on. And this is the gospel of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. This reading this morning from Saint Luke about the widow and giving all she had to live on ties in coincidentally with this feast of the presentation of our blessed lady. Now you won't find this in the New Testament. I mean, a record or a report or an account of our blessed lady's presentation in the temple. But this was a a normal ceremony.
Our blessed lord went through it, and so there's no reason to doubt that our blessed mother didn't go through it. Now the Salpician fathers from EC, France, who were the founders of a number of seminaries on the Eastern Coast and up in Canada. They made a great deal of this feast because it had a special meaning for young men presenting themselves to be priests of the lord. And I don't think anyone could quarrel with that as far as the symbolism goes. But the point is we are all in that same boat.
We are we have all been presented to the lord in baptism. Now it's it's often called a rite of initiation, and of course, it is a rite of initiation. But you know that word in English at least, I don't know what it is in other languages, but you see with us an initiation it means you're getting into a sorority or to a fraternity or joining the Masons or the KFC or you're you're going into some kind of a society or or an assembly or a special group, what have you. All it does, at best, is to give you certain privileges. It gives you certain rights under certain circumstances, but it doesn't change you actually in your very being.
And yet that's what baptism does. It changes us completely. It's a transformation from being men and women simply in the order of nature, under the impress of sin, under the dominion, whatever that may mean, of original sin, whatever that may mean, but it means something. And if you if you read Luther and Calvin and Company, it means a heck of a lot. It means that from being in that state, we are raised, we are transformed, we are changed, we are transmuted.
It's a complete metamorphosis as we used to say in biology. A complete metamorphosis into being children, into being sons and daughters of Jesus Christ, the son of god. Being being made part of a special family, a royal people, a noble priesthood. So it's the word initiation doesn't describe it at all. It it, it creates a very inadequate impression.
Because by our presentation in baptism, we are changed in our very being. To put it in the more familiar language or at least it used to be familiar, we are changed from the merry natural state into a supernatural order of grace. Now if there's anything that I take off my hat, if I had a hat on, to Luther and Zwingli and Calvin and all of these reformers of the sixteenth century, I say that they emphasize this. Not one no reformer rejected baptism. Not a single one of them.
How could they? Well, they didn't want to. It wasn't a problem at all. And this is the point they made, that by baptism, we are changed, we are incorporated into the very body of Christ which we call the mystical body. Now what they preached wasn't a new doctrine at all.
That wasn't they didn't discover that. But what they did do in the sixteenth century was to bring back an awareness of this doctrine among people who, in many instances, had forgotten it. We can forget it. We have been presented, and this presentation presentation means means a a commitment. Commitment.
And whatever else follows in our religious life follows upon our being changed into the supernatural order by baptism equivalent or its equivalent, but there's gotta be something like it or the equivalent thereof. And when we think of the blessed lady and think of her vocation and the life that was ahead of her and the commitment that she made and she did make a commitment. We certainly know she made a commitment when she said, be it done unto me according to thy word. That is a commitment. Now what happened in her presentation?
Who knows? But this gives us an opportunity of thinking about our own commitment, what are we committed to? Do we realize what we are? Do we realize the order, the life, the means of salvation we have? And let's not talk about it in the future tense.
Let's talk about it today, the November 21 with whatever comes to us today. God doesn't ask us to live tomorrow, and he doesn't certainly ask us to relive yesterday, although we do both of these things, and it's a waste of time. All that our blessed lord does is says, live today. Give us today our daily bread. There's nothing in there about the bread for tomorrow.
And when the, when the Jews had been released from Egypt and were traipsing across the Sinai Peninsula, remember, each day they were fed, for years they were fed, but only enough for one day did they get in manna and whatever these birds were. Only enough for one day, except when they needed to gather for a second day, then there was more. But there was never any any backup. There was none there was never a surplus. There was never any huge deposit of food against a rainy day.
It never was. They got what they needed for the day across that long, long journey across that great desert land. We do not live in a desert land. We live in the company of Jesus Christ and his saints. That is what we have been changed into.
Call it initiation if you want, but it but please read know what you're saying. You have been transformed. You are not as other men. You are a people and a race set apart. You have a goal which no earthly, goal can match.
Oh, there will be competitors, but they there's nothing to match at Saint Augustine. First sentence of the confessions that god made us for himself, and we're going to be satisfied until we rest in him. And so this feast of the presentation certainly is applicable to each one of us, to our commitment. And remember, our blessed lord is absolutely exclusive. You're committed to him or you are not.
And if you're committed to him, it is Jesus Christ alone. You cannot serve two masters. In the name of the father and the son and holy spirit. Amen.