It is an ancient tradition
that the Blessed Virgin Mary was solemnly offered to God in the temple in her
infancy. This festival of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, or, as it
is often called by the Greeks, the entrance of the Blessed Virgin into the
Temple, is mentioned in the most ancient Greek Menologies extant: also in a
constitution of the emperor Emanuel recited by Balsamon. Upon this festival we have several sermons of Germanus, patriarch of
Constantinople, in the thirteenth century, of St. Tarasius, patriarch of
Constantinople, of the emperor Leo the Wise, of George, the chancellor of the see of Constantinople. This festival passed from
the Greeks into the West, and was kept at Avignon in 1372.
Three years after this it is mentioned in a letter of Charles V, the French
king. Pope Sixtus V in 1585, commanded the
office of this day to be recited by the whole church.
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By the consecration which
the Blessed Virgin made of herself to God in the first use which she made of
her reason, we are admonished of the most important and strict obligation
which all persons lie under, of an early dedication of themselves to the
divine love and service.
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