Blessed Virgin Mary
A Reflection on The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
There's something about a three-year-old child climbing
fifteen temple steps that stops you in your tracks. According to tradition,
that's exactly what Mary did, her tiny feet carrying her up each stone toward a
life she couldn't possibly understand yet, but somehow already embraced. The
Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary isn't just a sweet story about a
devoted child. It's the first radical "yes" in a life that would be
defined by yes after yes after yes, each one more costly than the last. When
her parents brought her to the Temple, they were offering their daughter to
God, and Mary, barely more than a baby herself, was already learning what it
meant to belong entirely to Him. Think about that. Before the Annunciation,
before Bethlehem, before the sword would pierce her heart at Calvary, she was
already walking toward God with open hands.
This momentous offering happened in silence, witnessed by so few, celebrated by
none of the powerful. Mary's entire life follows this pattern, the most
significant person in salvation history after her Son, and yet she lived in
obscurity, in a nowhere town, in a conquered nation, unknown to history's
chroniclers. The Presentation captures this perfectly. No angelic choirs
announced it. No star appeared overhead. Just a family keeping a promise, a
child taking steps, a quiet offering that would change everything. This is how
God works, isn't it? The hinges of history turn in hidden rooms. The world is
saved by a teenage girl's whispered "fiat" in Nazareth. The King of
Kings is born in a cave meant for animals. And here, years before, a little
girl walks up temple steps in silence, and heaven holds its breath.
When we pray the Rosary, those beautiful Hail Marys that create such rhythm and
peace, we're actually climbing those same temple steps with Mary. Each bead
becomes another step upward, each decade drawing us closer to total surrender
and total joy. Think about it: Mary didn't trudge up those fifteen steps reluctantly,
she ran up them with the excitement of a child who knows she's going home, who
knows she's exactly where she belongs. That's what the Rosary does for us. It's
not drudgery; it's the thrill of ascending, of offering ourselves the way she
offered herself, with absolute trust and delight. When we sink into the
mysteries, we're learning what Mary learned on those temple steps, that giving
yourself completely to God isn't a loss, it's the greatest adventure possible.
She was three years old and already understood what takes us a lifetime to
grasp: belonging to God is freedom, not constraint. The Rosary trains us in
this same joyful surrender. Bead by bead, we practice what she perfected, the
art of climbing toward heaven with eager steps, of presenting ourselves over
and over again, of discovering that every ascent toward God is actually a
descent of His grace flooding our souls. Mary's presentation wasn't somber, it
was her first great celebration of love. And the Rosary? It's our chance to
celebrate the same way, to climb those steps with her, laughing with the joy of
children who finally understand where home really is.
But here's what unsettles me, what should unsettle all of us: Mary's
presentation was a surrender. She wasn't just visiting the Temple, she was
given to it, handed over, her life no longer her own. When we honor this feast,
when we pray the Rosary, are we willing to be presented too? Or do we want a
Christianity that costs us nothing, a spirituality that accessorizes our lives
without disrupting them? Mary's parents walked away from the Temple without
their daughter. Mary herself walked away from a normal childhood. Later, she
would walk away from her reputation when she became pregnant before marriage.
She would walk away from safety to flee to Egypt. She would walk away from her
own Son when He left to preach, and finally, she would stand at the foot of a
cross and watch Him walk away into death. Every step she took up those temple
stairs was practice for a lifetime of letting go. The Rosary asks us the same
question fifteen steps asked her: Will you ascend? Will you offer? Will you let
God have all of you, not just the parts you can afford to give?
The ultimate beauty of Mary's Presentation is that it was always about Jesus.
She was being prepared, her whole life was a preparation to say yes to Him, to
carry Him, to raise Him, to release Him to His mission, to receive Him back
broken on her lap beneath the cross. Every bead of the Rosary leads us through
her to Him. We don't honor Mary instead of Jesus; we honor her because she
shows us how to love Him with everything. Those temple steps led to the
Annunciation, which led to Bethlehem, which led to the hidden years in
Nazareth, which led to Cana, which led to Calvary, which led to Pentecost. It's
all one movement, one offering, one life poured out. When we pray the Rosary,
we're not just reciting prayers, we're walking with her up those steps,
learning from the woman who mastered the art of surrender, who shows us that
the way to Jesus is always through small faiths, quiet yeses, and the
willingness to climb toward God even when we can't see the top of the stairs.
Mary, our mother, our model, our guide, teach us to present ourselves as you
presented yourself: completely, fearlessly, with the trust of a child who knows
her Father is good.
©2025 James Dacey, Jr., OFS
