The Holy Family

Gospel Reading: Luke 2:41-52

41 Every year his parents used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover.
42 When he was twelve years old, they went up for the feast as usual
43 When they were on their way home after the feast, the boy
stayed behind in Jerusalem without his parents knowing it.
44 They assumed he was with the caravan, and it was only after a day's journey that they went to look for him among their relations and acquaintances.
45 When they failed to find him they went back to Jerusalem looking for him everywhere.
46 Three days later, they found him in the Temple, sitting among the doctors listening to them, and asking them questions;
47 and all those who heard him were astounded at his intelligence and his replies.
48 They were overcome when they saw him, and his mother said to him, ‘My child, why have you done this to us? See how worried your father and I have been, looking for you.'
49 'Why were you looking for me?' he replied. 'Did you not know that I    must be busy with my father's affairs?’
50 But they did not understand what he meant.
51 He went down with them and came to Nazareth and lived under authority. His mother stored up all these things in her heart.
52 And Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature, and in favour with God and men.

Meditation

Here is a highly symbolic story. We can read it from Jesus' point of view or from that of his parents.
We can divide the story into two parts - verses 41 to 50, and verses 51 and 52 - and meditate on each separately. Taken together, however, and understood as complementing each other, they give us a balanced picture of the role of authority in human life.

Lord, we pray today for all those involved in the work of education - parents, teachers, youth leaders, church ministers.

Young people come to stay with us and live under our authority for a time,
 increasing in wisdom, in stature and in favour with you and with men and women.
But they are not ours.

You are their father and they must be busy about your affairs. Some have unusual vocations - in the church perhaps, or in the arts, or in politics.

At times we will feel we have lost them and we will be overcome with worry as we spend days looking for them.

Then, quite unexpectedly, we find them, at ease in their temple, asking and answering questions, quite surprised that we should be looking for them,
while we remain perplexed at what it all means.

Lord, bringing up children is a lofty calling. Help us, like Mary and Joseph, to be faithful to it.

'It may be that the salvation of the world lies with the maladjusted
Martin Luther King

Lord, there are times in life when we must step out on our own, knowing that dear ones will be very worried, looking for us, wanting to bring us back to Nazareth where we can be subject to them.

Give us the grace to commit ourselves, like Jesus, to what we know to be our Father's business.

'The church must be concerned not just with herself and her relationship of union with God, but with human beings as they really are today.'
Pope Paul VI concluding the Second Vatican Council, December 1965

Lord, as a church we tend to remain within our concerns, safe in Nazareth where we know the rules of the game, who is subject to whom, and we can feel sure we are growing in wisdom, in stature, and in favour with God and with the influential people in society.

We pray that your church may take the risk of being lost for days at a time,
even though its leaders are overcome with worry, so that Jesus can be among the learned people of our time,listening to them and asking them questions, and modern generations, like previous ones, can be astounded
by the wisdom of his message and of the replies he brings to the problems of our time.

'Only one ship is seeking us, a black-sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back a huge and birdless silence. In her wake no waters breed or break.'
West Indian poem

Lord, when we are young we have lofty goals for ourselves. We are in Jerusalem, at the centre of things, questioning the wisdom of our day and      astounding all by the intelligence of our replies.                

Then another time comes when we find ourselves stagnant, not going anywhere or achieving anything, subject  to the conventions and prejudices of society.        

Teach us, Lord, that this too is a necessary stage when, like Jesus in Nazareth, we can increase in wisdom, stature and in favour with you.