Consecration
Thirty years have passed since I first saw Nicolas Dipre’s Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple in the Louvre. For having been painted half a millennium ago, it is strikingly contemporary. The Virgin waves fondly, a little bashfully to her parents as she makes her way up the winding temple stairs. Anna and Joachim wave back. They’re visibly filled with pride and foreboding, trying not to show sadness at the parting. All of us can recognise this scene: the first significant departure from home, the sense of suddenly following our own path with all that it entails: responsibility, excitement, anxiety. The story of Mary’s presentation is apocryphal. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true. It shows us that a decisive Yes to God’s call, like the one the Virgin gave at the Annunciation, is prepared by innumerable hidden, unspectacular yeses. By small steps we consecrate our will, our being to a higher purpose. The temple stairs are a parable of our life. ‘One step enough for me‘. Yes. What matters is to take the one which is today’s.
