Today’s Gospel delivers us a very nice story. The parents of Jesus observed the Thorà, the teaching of the Lord, looking the little child Jesus up to Jerusalem to be consecrated to God. The story introduces to us a very old man, Simeon. He opened himself up to the newness that had come into the history of humanity. Unlike many other elders of Israel, he knew how to recognize in that child the Light that had been revealed to the world. Simeon was a man of tradition, a man of the Old Testament, but he did not cling to his world, to his religious knowledge, to the doctrines, to the precepts that he observed for so many years.

The real difference between him and the other elders of Israel is that he opened himself up to the Spirit and allowed himself to be carried by Him. For this, he recognized the face of God, an original face, which was revealed to him at that moment: the face of a little child.
The Nunc dimittis, Simeon’s prayer, does not represent dying after having seen the Lord, but the rest in the peace of a person who has recognized that God has not forgotten his people and, in his great mercy, places his dwelling among us.
For Simeon, tradition is important: but not in the sense of a useless repetition of things already done, not in the sense of being against all innovations. For Simeon, tradition is the acceptance of a revelation that has its roots in the past and which today is becoming ever new, richer, more fruitful. The condition is to be open to the gift of the Spirit.
Spirit is wind, breath, fire. It pushes us, guides us, purifies us. The Spirit is life. Being open to the gift of the Spirit means recognizing one’s weakness, entering the humility of those who know that alone they cannot get anywhere. At the same time, being open to the gift of the Spirit means desiring to live a full life, while also accepting that our plans are upset and overturned.
Jesus also submitted to tradition, to the Law of the Lord but at the same time overcomes it and fulfills it.
Today Jesus invites us not to freeze the gift received but to make it always new and fascinating. It is not by remembering the past longing that we solve the problems of the present moment. If we become too clung in the past, we risk being still and losing our appointment with the present, a time full of the presence of God.
Simeon, despite being aged, is a real young man, obviously not in body but in spirit. He let himself be moved and changed by the Spirit, he was not afraid of the newness. Let us take inspiration from his attitude. Possibly sometimes, even though we are still young, we show an old, sad, tired face. Today is the appropriate time to regain our spiritual youth. God is among us and smiles at us with the face of a child.