On February 2, we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation, also known as Candlemas. In today’s Gospel, we hear the story of two elders who proclaim the infant Jesus to be the long-awaited Messiah—Simeon, a devout old man, perhaps a priest, to whom the Holy Spirit had promised that “he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord,” and Anna, an old woman, a widow, and a prophet who for years had devoted all her time to fasting and prayer in the temple.

If you attend Mass at a Roman Catholic Church on Candlemas, however, you may or may not hear the whole story of the Presentation. In the lectionary, which determines which Scriptures are proclaimed on which days, the verses about the Prophet Anna are optional. For some, the story of the Presentation ends with the words of Simeon with no mention of his female counterpart or her crucial role in salvation history.

What is lost when we leave Anna out of the story of the Presentation? At a glance, it could seem that her role is redundant beside Simeon’s, but, in reality, without her, the story of the Presentation is incomplete, and we are left with only a partial view of the Good News.

The Feast of the Presentation gets its nickname Candlemas from a tradition still observed in many churches around the world in which people bring candles from their homes to Mass to be blessed. This practice mirrors the movement of the infant Jesus, the Light of the World, being brought to the temple, consecrated, and sent forth into the world. In the Gospel today, this “sending forth” is accomplished in part by Jesus’ literal departure from the temple; but that’s not the whole story.

While we don’t have any direct quotes from the Prophet Anna, we are told that, having immediately recognized the baby Jesus as the Messiah, “she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.” She went forth preaching, carrying the Good News of the Light of the World beyond the walls of the temple to those who yearned for salvation. When we leave Mass on Candlemas, it is not enough to return to our homes with our candles, cozy in our assurance of our private salvation. Rather, Anna reminds us that we must bring the Good News out into the world, particularly to those who are suffering and longing for consolation.

Another aspect of Anna’s story that reveals something important about the Good News of Christ is her identity as a widow and as a member of the tribe of Asher. In Jesus’ time, the word “widow” was practically shorthand for “the poorest of the poor,” with widows being extremely vulnerable and often financially destitute. As a widow, Anna reminds us that the good news of Jesus is best understood from the vantage point of those who are poor and marginalized. As a member of the tribe of Asher, Anna also represented a kind of cultural outsider, and the inclusion of this detail is a reminder of the universality of Jesus’ salvation.

Finally, Simeon and Anna are one of several examples of gender-symmetrical pairs in the Gospel of Luke, where we also hear of Elizabeth and Zechariah and Mary and Joseph. Some scholars have suggested that gender-symmetrical pairs were actually much more common among early Jesus followers than we typically imagine. Scripture scholars Helena Bond and Joan Taylor have suggested that in Mark’s Gospel when Jesus is described as sending the Twelve Apostles out two by two, what is meant is not that the Apostles paired up among themselves but they went out in male-female pairs to spread the good news. Bond and Taylor point out that, in a society where men and women’s social spaces were sharply segregated, women would have had to have been involved in the evangelization of other women. And based on the abundance of women in the early Jesus movement, we certainly know that women were being evangelized. Whether Bond and Taylor’s hypothesis about early Christian disciples holds up, the inclusion of a man and a woman in today’s Gospel is another way the evangelist represents the universality of Christ’s salvation and of the call to discipleship.

Anna’s story represents a “dangerous memory” for many in our Church and world today who would prefer women to stay quiet and content in a Church that authorizes few paths to spiritual leadership for them. What we have in the story of Anna is a woman who prophesies and preaches. Indeed, it is Anna, not her male counterpart Simeon, for whom the esteemed title of “prophet” is reserved. UMC pastor and scholar J. Ellsworth Kalas put it well in his reflection on the Prophet Anna: “There were occasional women prophets…but they were a rare body, for sure…Their gift had to make room for them, because the culture didn’t encourage the idea of a woman assuming such a position of spiritual leadership.”

“The gift had to make room for them.” How many women in the Church today have to rely on their abundant gifts to “make room for them,” to clear a path out of no path for a call that has nowhere to go? Anna’s story is not the only example of a story of a woman preaching being excluded from the lectionary. Just as Anna was among the first to go out into the world proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah, Mary Magdalene was the first to preach his resurrection, but her role in doing so is left out of the Gospel reading on Easter Sunday.

In the Church today, women can preach, but not during the Mass—which is the only time the vast majority of everyday Catholics will hear preaching. So much of the Good News in the story of the Presentation is lost when we skip over the passages about the Prophet Anna; what is lost in our Church when the majority of churchgoers never hear a woman break open God’s word? Who does the light of the Good News fail to reach when we fail to tell the stories of women’s encounters with the Light of the World, past and present?

On the Feast of the Presentation, Anna reminds us to carry the light of Christ, which excludes no one, out into the world, to be beacons of the good news with our lives, especially for those who are marginalized. St. Anna, preacher and prophet, widow and elder, pray for us!