READ Luke 2:22, 39-40 When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE GOSPEL.
UNDERSTAND By Father Greg Friedman, OFM Although we usually are too polite to show it, let’s be honest—once in a while we receive a Christmas gift that is just the opposite of what we were expecting! Now, an unexpected Christmas gift may not be all that bad. Sometimes, years later, we may cherish such a gift more than those we’d have chosen for ourselves. The infancy narratives in Luke’s Gospel offer us a similar “unexpected gift.” Between the lines of his accounts of the Holy Family, the infant in the manger or the shepherds visiting the manger, Luke is leading us to look ahead in the story, to the outcome of the Lord’s mission: his death and resurrection. Scripture scholars tell us that these stories point to wider themes of Luke’s Gospel, the revelation about Jesus’ identity and the challenge of being his disciples.