Saints Simeon and Anna

Saints Simeon and Anna are the two people who, in the Temple in Jerusalem, recognized in the infant Jesus the awaited Messiah: a righteous and devout old man, and a widow and prophetess. The Roman Martyrology commemorates them together on February 3, the day after the feast of the Presentation of the Lord.

Everything we know about them was written down by Saint Luke in the second chapter of his Gospel. We do not know the years of their lives or what became of them afterward. Simeon lived in Jerusalem. The evangelist calls him a righteous and devout man who was awaiting the consolation of Israel, and adds that the Holy Spirit was upon him. He does not say what Simeon’s occupation was or how old he was. Yet the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not die before he had seen the Messiah of the Lord, and so tradition, and the Martyrology after it, sees in him an old man.

Forty days after the birth of Jesus, Mary and Joseph brought him to the Temple to present him to the Lord, in keeping with the Law of Moses. Simeon came there prompted by the Spirit, took the child in his arms, and blessed God. We know his words as the canticle Nunc dimittis. In it the old man asks the Lord to let him go in peace, for his eyes have seen the salvation prepared in the sight of all peoples: a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of Israel. The Church prays this canticle every evening, in the prayer that closes the day.

Simeon blessed Mary and Joseph, and then turned to Mary alone. He foretold that her Son was destined for the fall and the rise of many in Israel and to be a sign that would be contradicted, and that a sword would pierce her own soul. The Church sees in these words an announcement of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and of the Mother’s share in the suffering of her Son.

Anna was the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was widowed after seven years of marriage, and on the day she met Jesus she was eighty-four years old. She never left the Temple and served God night and day with fasting and prayer. She came forward at that very moment, gave thanks to God, and spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem. John Paul II observed that Anna, like Simeon, had no special status among the chosen people, and yet her life had great value in the eyes of God.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that with Simeon and Anna all Israel awaits its encounter with the Savior, and recalls that the Byzantine tradition calls this event precisely the Encounter. Benedict XVI pointed out that in the crowd filling the Temple only these two elderly people, led by the Holy Spirit, recognized the Messiah in the child. Pope Francis said that they were full of life because the Holy Spirit animated them, and that the fidelity of waiting sharpens the senses of the soul.

The Gospel says nothing about the death of Simeon and Anna. Nor were they ever formally canonized: the Church venerates them as saints, as she does other righteous men and women whom Sacred Scripture presents.