Pope Francis celebrated the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, a feast day when believers remember when the Christ child was brought to the temple.

The feast day is celebrated 40 days after Jesus’ birth and is also known as Candlemas Day. 

“On the feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the temple, we present ourselves to God with purified spirits, so that our eyes might see the light of salvation and we might thus bring it to the entire world, as the Saints did,” Pope Francis tweeted.  

According to Bible.USCCB, “40 days after his birth, Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem and offered a sacrifice of two pigeons.  A man named Simeon met them at the temple and recognized Jesus as the Messiah.  An elderly prophetess named Anna also saw Jesus at the temple and thanked God, acknowledging that Jesus would redeem Jerusalem.”

A Jew by birth, Jesus and his parents, Mary and Joseph were familiar with the Jewish tradition which believed that women were ritually unclean for 40 days following the birth of their child. Following the 40 days of purification, the family traversed to the temple to present Jesus and to signify Mary’s return to celebrating the various religious activities that were traditional. 

The Gospel reading for Candlemas was Luke 2:22-32, which in part is as follows: “When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord, and to offer the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.”