Friday December 29, 2017
The ceremony of “purification” of a woman after childbirth continued into our lifetime. My mother was “purified” or “churched” shortly after my birth. It’s strange that this custom should ever have been taken over from Judaism, and stranger still that it should have lasted so long. For Jews, it was not a moral but a ceremonial purification, prescribed in the Book of Leviticus, “If a woman conceives and gives birth to a boy, she is to be unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly periods. On the eighth day, the child’s foreskin must be circumcised, and she must wait another thirty-three days for her blood to be purified. She must not touch anything consecrated nor go to the sanctuary until the time of her purification is over. If she gives birth to a girl, she is to be unclean for fourteen days, as during her monthly periods; and she must wait another sixty-six days for her blood to be purified” (12:2-5).
Today’s reading shows us Mary and Joseph following this prescription of the Law. Many commentators, ancient and modern, remark how humbly they submitted to this. But it would have been unthinkable for them not to do so; nor would they have thought of it as humility. The sign of their humble status is the offering they brought. The Book of Leviticus prescribed a lamb and a pigeon or turtledove, or “if she cannot afford a lamb, she is to take two turtledoves or two young pigeons” (12:8). The offering brought by Mary and Joseph was the offering of the poor.
