Today, the Church celebrates Mary’s presentation in the Temple. Although there are no scriptural or historical accounts of this particular event, it is a feast that has profound theological symbolism and has been important for Christians since the earliest days of Christianity.

An early written account that contains many key stories of Mary’s childhood come from a piece of early Christian writing called the Protoevangelium of James also called The Gospel of James or The Infancy Gospel of James. In the Protoevangelium, the author draws on many Old Testament tropes to connect Mary’s birth and childhood with the holy men and women of Israel’s sacred heritage. Anna and Joachim, Mary’s parents are devout Jews who are childless. Joachim is shunned for his infertility and Anna weeps, lamenting her barrenness, which has caused them deep shame. An angel appears to her and tells her that she will conceive a child. Anna vows in that very moment to dedicate her child, male or female, to the Lord in the Temple. Soon after, Joachim and Anna conceive. They are overjoyed, and, eventually, Anna bears a girl who they name Mary. Soon after Mary’s birth, Anna takes Mary to the Temple to present her to the Lord and dedicate her daughter’s life to God.

The feast is important because not only does it connect Mary’s parents Joachim and Anna to righteous figures from Scripture, like Abraham and Sarah, it also draws a close parallel between Mary’s life and Jesus’, as the Church celebrates the feast of Jesus’ own presentation in the Temple (Lk 2:22-38), on February 2nd. Because Mary is the first and greatest disciple, a model of faith, her life is depicted as an intimate imitation of Christ’s.

Furthermore, the feast draws the close connection between Mary and the Temple. The Temple was believed by the Jewish people to be the place where God’s glory, the Shekinah, dwelled on earth. Mary, who will house God-made-flesh in her body, is the new Temple, the new Ark of the Covenant, the location of God’s presence on earth for nine months in her body and throughout her whole life as she walked in unwavering faithfulness with God. For, in the words of St. Augustine, “it was for [Mary] a greater thing to have been Christ’s disciple than to have been his mother, and she was more blessed in her discipleship than in her motherhood. Hers was the happiness of first bearing in her womb him whom she would obey as her master.”

Indeed, from the beginning of her life, through the grace of her Immaculate Conception, Mary cooperated fully with God’s grace. This cooperation with God came to fruition in her acceptance of Gabriel’s message at the Annunciation, leading to God’s incarnation in the world. We, like Mary, are called to live as God’s holy temples, to bear Christ into the world as Mary did.

Mary’s presentation in the Temple is represented in a stained glass window in the Basilica of Sacred Heart on Notre Dame’s campus. In the window, shown above to the left, Anna and Joachim, her parents, present her to the temple priest.

Make a virtual visit to the church built over Anna and Joachim’s home, where Mary was raised in Jerusalem, as Mary was traditionally believed to have been raised near the Temple.

Mary, whose dedication to God allowed her to become God’s living temple—pray for us!