By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Saint Symeon, whose life was prolonged in this present world because of the oracle he had received from the Holy Spirit — that he would not die before he had seen Christ — received Him in his arms. And after everything that would happen concerning Him was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit and he prophesied these things, according to the oracle that had been given to him he accepted the end of his life. And the prophetess Anna was the daughter of Phanuel, who was from the tribe of Asher. She lived with her husband for seven years, and after she lost him through death, she lived continually in the Temple with fasting and prayer, spending her entire life there. Therefore, because this was her constant way of life, she too was deemed worthy to see the Lord being offered as a man in the Temple, forty days old, by His All-Holy Mother and the righteous Joseph. She glorified God and proclaimed Him with power to all who were in the Temple, saying: "This infant is the Lord who established heaven and earth. This is the Christ, whom all the prophets foretold." Therefore, today we celebrate the memory of these saints, Symeon and Anna, and we proclaim the awesome and ineffable condescension of God toward us.
As happens in similar cases, namely, that the day following a great Feast of the Lord is dedicated to the persons who played the leading role in it, today’s feast, which continues the Feast of the Reception of the Lord, is dedicated above all to the principal figure, the righteous Symeon the God-receiver, and by extension also to Anna the prophetess. And while the very day of the Reception moved, as we said, within an atmosphere of awe and mystery — because the almighty and all-powerful Lord was offered as an infant in the Temple, held in the aged hands of Symeon — today’s feast, as its extension, without departing from this mystery, also focuses on the presuppositions of the elder Symeon, so that he might become a participant in God’s gift, that is, the grace of holding God in his own hands. For any gift of God to man is not without presuppositions. If a person is not ready to receive God, God does not offer Himself to him — not because God does not will it, for God’s joy is always to be with man — but because it would not be beneficial for the person. A person who is not in harmony with God — this is what the presuppositions of the human being mean — “is burned” by the sight of God. “No one shall see the face of God and live.”
Thus, the elder Symeon, before seeing Christ and embracing Him, had already made himself worthy of such a gift. The hymnography of our Church, following precisely the Gospel narrative, which emphasizes Symeon’s righteousness and his being filled with the Spirit (“the Holy Spirit was upon him”), repeatedly refers to the sanctified manner of his life throughout its course. Entirely by way of example:
“Raised up by your sacred deeds, O divinely-inspired one, clearly supported like a luminous pillar, you were made so by the All-Holy Spirit.”
“With purity of mind you served Almighty God like an angel, O blessed one.”
“You made yourself a most holy temple of God by your godly deeds, O divinely-inspired one; therefore you beheld God in the flesh as an infant within the Holy Temple.”
Purification of the mind (nous) and a practical life in accordance with God’s commandments — these are the presuppositions shown to us by Saint Symeon, so that one may become a beholder of God (theoptic), having the very God in one’s arms and within oneself.
This spiritual stature of Saint Symeon — his life in harmony with God and the purity of his soul, which made him a temple of God and a beholder of God (theoptic) — leads Saint Joseph the Hymnographer to draw the logical conclusion that, with these presuppositions, Symeon may indeed be old in years, but he is young in spirit. For this is what the presence of God’s grace does to the human spirit: it keeps it always in youthful vigor. When a person lives in the presence of God, he does not wither from the poison of sin. Sin is what ages a person, because it wounds and injures him, gradually leading him to spiritual death. And this means that, according to our faith, youthfulness is primarily a matter of the “heart,” of a person’s inner world, and not merely a matter of age. How often even today do we see young people with a withered and aged “heart,” because they have surrendered themselves unrepentantly to various sins, and elderly people overflowing with joy and vitality, precisely because they struggle to remain in God. This was something that the sanctified Elder Paisios the Athonite also pointed out with bitterness and sorrow when speaking about such young people: “Brand-new machines, with frozen oil.”
Thus the hymnographer, referring to this reality, tells us:
“Youthful in spirit, yet advanced in body, Symeon.”
And elsewhere:
“You grew very old in age, Symeon, but in faith you remained young, desiring to see as a newborn infant the perfect One, who renews the world that had grown old through the assault of the ancient enemy” (the devil).
Such a way of viewing things also leads us to the thought that perhaps today’s feast should be proposed — if it has not already been — as a feast of the third, or even the fourth, as they now say, age of life. The purpose would be to highlight its value and contribution, beyond the merely observed decline of physical strength. We say this because old age is often considered by many, if not an “illness” in itself — as some characterize it — then at least an age largely useless, which, even when seen, causes a burden. Yet with the meeting of the elder Symeon and Jesus Christ, and with the presence of Saint Anna, matters are placed in an entirely different light. Elderly hands become the throne of God; the mouth becomes a prophetic proclamation; Symeon himself becomes the forerunner of the Lord even into Hades. The same is true of the aged Anna. Who would not envy these elders? Who would not wish to be in their place? And then consider how many holy elders — men and women — were the support of the Church and of the world while they lived. Who can dispute the power of holiness of Saint Anthony, who departed this life at the age of 105? Who can despise the sanctity of Saint Paul of Thebes, who until the age of 113 was a shining star of the Church? And later on: Elder Porphyrios, Elder Sophrony, Elder Paisios, Elder Iakovos — elders of advanced age, and yet so young, so vigorous in soul, that even the youngest person would envy them.
In this context, Saint Joseph, precisely to confirm the youthful mindset of the righteous Symeon, tells us something that serves as a condemnation of the misery of other elders who suffer from an aged “heart” — that is, from withering because they see no continuation in this life, from the constant recycling of their illnesses and pains, from a deep desire to “trap” others by playing the role of the victim. What does the Hymnographer say? The elder Symeon, he says, offered consolation, oriented others toward overcoming their sorrow, spoke to them of the joy that Christ brought, and even saw his own end as joy. His words were an opening toward the future — comforting and liberating — and this showed his youthful mindset, surpassing even that of the Prophets of the Old Testament:
“The joy of the afflicted has come; truly the redemption of Israel appeared as an infant in His Temple; releasing me to go to the life to come, Symeon cried out with joy.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
