Trusting in God’s plan of salvation, the Blessed Virgin Mary’s parents brought her to the Temple of Jerusalem and dedicated her to God when she was just three years old.
Mary’s consecration at the Temple by her parents was in thanksgiving. When Joachim and Anne were still childless and unable to conceive, they received a heavenly message promising them a child.
Mary remained in the Temple after her presentation, dedicating herself in prayer and service. It was in the Temple that she received the spiritual formation that would prepare her to be the Virgin Mother of God.
Following Mary’s Immaculate Conception and her birth, apocryphal sources describe her presentation at the Temple as a child. The event is not recorded in the Gospels but is compatible with Sacred Scripture and Tradition.
Commemorating Mary’s presentation reinforces the fact that she was chosen by God and consecrated to the Lord from an early age by her parents.
The Catholic Church honors Mary’s purity and the faith of her parents on the Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple, celebrated each year on November 21.
God prepared Mary in every possible way:
Preparing Mary to be the Mother of God:
Then the LORD God said to the snake: Because you have done this, cursed are you among all the animals, tame or wild; On your belly you shall crawl, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel.
Genesis 3: 14-15
Entering the palace of the King:
Mary was completely dedicated to God from childhood:
“God sent forth his Son”, but to prepare a body for Him, He wanted the free co-operation of a creature. For this, from all eternity God chose for the mother of his Son a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, “a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary”: The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother, so that just as a woman had a share in the coming of death, so also should a woman contribute to the coming of life.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 488
The child Mary was different:
Mary was set apart for an extraordinary life:
The Sacred Scriptures of both the Old and the New Testament, as well as ancient Tradition show the role of the Mother of the Savior in the economy of salvation in an ever clearer light and draw attention to it. The books of the Old Testament describe the history of salvation, by which the coming of Christ into the world was slowly prepared. These earliest documents, as they are read in the Church and are understood in the light of a further and full revelation, bring the figure of the woman, Mother of the Redeemer, into a gradually clearer light. When it is looked at in this way, she is already prophetically foreshadowed in the promise of victory over the serpent which was given to our first parents after their fall into sin. Likewise she is the Virgin who shall conceive and bear a son, whose name will be called Emmanuel. She stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, who confidently hope for and receive salvation from Him. With her the exalted Daughter of Sion, and after a long expectation of the promise, the times are fulfilled and the new Economy established, when the Son of God took a human nature from her, that He might in the mysteries of His flesh free man from sin.
Pope Paul VI, Lumen Gentium, 21 November 1964
All the conditions of the most perfect sacrifice:
Mary’s parents offered all that they had:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Resting in the teaching of the Church:
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