November 21
The saints and feasts remembered on November 21, each with a short life, a Bible passage and a prayer.
Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Recalls the tradition of Mary as a child offered to God in the Temple
This feast recalls an old story about Mary's childhood that is not found in the Bible. It comes from the Protoevangelium of James, a Christian writing from the second century. It tells that Joachim and Anne, Mary's parents, brought her to the Temple in Jerusalem when she was three to dedicate her to God, and that she stayed there until she was a young woman. In one vivid detail, the little girl dances on the step of the altar.
The feast grew from the dedication of a church to Mary in Jerusalem in 543. Eastern Christians have kept it for centuries, and the Orthodox count it among their twelve great feasts. It reached the papal court at Avignon in 1372 and later entered the Roman calendar, where it is now a memorial.
Historians treat the story as legend. What Christians celebrate is its meaning: Mary's whole life given to God from the start, ready for the “yes” she would one day say.
Pointing to His disciples, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers. For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”
Matthew 12:49–50 · BSB
A prayer
God of grace, from the beginning you drew Mary close to you and made her life a home for your Son. Help us, young and old, to offer you our lives without holding anything back, so that we may hear your word and do your will. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint Rufus
Greeted by Paul as “chosen in the Lord” in his letter to the Romans
Rufus was a Christian of the middle of the first century. We know him from a single line in Paul's letter to the Romans, written around AD 57. Paul sends greetings to Rufus, “chosen in the Lord,” and to his mother, who had been a mother to Paul as well. Most readers take this to mean Rufus lived in Rome, though some scholars think this last chapter was first sent to Ephesus.
Paul singles Rufus out with a phrase of honour, and he clearly owed something personal to Rufus's mother. Mark's Gospel names a Rufus as a son of Simon of Cyrene, the man forced to carry Jesus' cross. Many scholars think they may be the same person, since Mark seems to expect his readers to know him, but this cannot be proved. Nothing certain is known about Rufus's later life or death.
Christians remember Rufus as one of the ordinary believers who made up the first churches: a name, a family, and a mother's kindness an apostle remembered.
Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me as well.
Romans 16:13 · BSB
A prayer
Faithful God, you called Rufus to belong to you and gave his mother a mother's care for the apostle Paul. Keep us faithful to your call, and make us generous and warm toward those who serve your Gospel, as she was. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The lives are written with AI help from public-domain histories and checked before publishing; the prayers are ours. Bible quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), in the public domain. How we write.