Luke’s Gospel tells us this: When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (Lk.2: 22). So the overlap of Purification and Presentation began very early.

The purification rites were for the Lady Mary.  During the 40 days after birthing an infant, according to the Law, the mother was unclean, so she and Joseph walked north the six miles from Bethlehem to the Temple in Jerusalem for her Purification.

They took the infant because of another law covering all living things.  Consecrate every firstborn male to me, the firstborn from every womb among the Israelites, both man and domestic animal; it is mine (Exod.13: 2). That was to remember that God Almighty had killed all firstborns among the Egyptians  to egg Pharoah into letting His People go. Jesus seemed to be called as just one more of those firstborns.  

But the offering of this particular firstborn male child was not a symbol of something in the People’s history. God’s command here expresses a Personal relation between this firstborn male and the Almighty God: And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

So Joseph and Mary took the baby with them because from His beginning among humankind, Jesus is being pulled from the crowd of us where He was born. We have learned that Almighty God would raise Jesus as His own Son because this is how He had intended all along to liberate humankind from the mystery of our slavery to sin—the mystery of Original Sin.

Babies don’t sin, of course—as the Catechism explains: infants can’t deliberately act against Gods will. But the Catechism goes on to explore this mystery by citing St. Thomas that “the whole human race is in Adam ‘as one body in one man’” (CCC 403-4). Beautiful metaphor.

So this doctor of the Church put the mystery in a preserves bottle and screwed the top on. Doesn’t matter: the Original Sin remains a mystery that no catechism and no doctor can fully explain and we are all likely to feel that when we receive absolution.

Original Sin might be better thought about as infants being born into a world in which it is easy to act against God’s will—excessively easy. It’s like infants born into any over-industrialized city on earth. They are going to breathe polluted air. No escape.  

All of this tells why the feast of Mary’s Purification and Jesus’ Presentation have been entangled from the earliest of times. But the gospels had also been reminding believers from the earliest of times that Jesus of Nazareth belonged to God Almighty in an utterly singular way. He was the Son of God.

And when He spilled His blood on the Cross He was spilling out His life to redeem the whole of humankind from among whom He had been called.

Realizing the unique value of this might be why Church authorities have recently declared the feast day simply ”The Presentation.”