The story of Jesus’ discovery in the Temple is part of the celebration of the Feast of the Holy Family, for Year C, because it is the third episode that we read in the infancy narratives of the Gospels. Jesus had been taken to the Temple several times since his birth. Perhaps he had accompanied his parents on their annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem. However, if this is so, the Gospel says nothing about it. Instead, Luke thought it important to add to his ‘sequence of events’ the story of what happened at Jerusalem when Jesus went there for Passover at the age of twelve. The essential purpose, to be sure, is that we may render an account of the certainty of the teachings that we have received. (Lk 1:4). In addition, though, the Church believes, rightly enough, that there is a lesson here for family life.
In our first reading we have a short piece from the First Book of Samuel, which tells why the child Samuel, once he was weaned, was consecrated to the service of the Lord. According to the etymology used in the lectionary, ‘Samuel’ means ‘God granted.’ — ‘He who is with God.’ In fact, this child, born after many years of sterility to a woman who had never stopped asking God for the favour of becoming a mother, was truly an answer to a prayer. We are a little surprised that Hannah did not go up to the sanctuary with her husband Elkanah and the rest of the family ‘to offer the customary sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfil his vows.’ But Hannah’s abstention from making this ritual pilgrimage does not mean that she was unwilling, and she says so to her husband. Instead of going to offer ‘the customary sacrifice,’ Hannah would wait until the child was weaned and then present him as one consecrated to God from before his birth. But in his mother’s mind this consecration is not partial, i.e. limited to the observance of certain rules for a specific way of life. She wanted Samuel to be consecrated to the Lord forever and to remain in the service of the Lord in the Sanctuary for his entire life. When she went up after having weaned the child, she took her son to Shiloh so that he would live in the Sanctuary ‘all the days of his life.’ After reading such a story today, the question may arise, ‘why should this concern us?’ In society today we have become extremely sensitive to questions of personal liberty, even for a child, and quite rightly so. Thankfully, the practice of offering anybody, especially children, as a religious oblate is no longer allowed. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the child is and always will be a gift of God: he or she does not really belong to the parents. We must also note that God’s plan for a child’s vocation surpasses all. Moreover, the search for God must animate one’s whole life, determining all choices. This is what our Psalm expresses today: In God alone — in his ‘dwelling place’ — are found the only true blessings. ‘How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts.’
The search for God is not a quest that is valuable in itself, i. e. In the goodwill and perseverance with which it is followed, since we know that God is and always will be inaccessible. We can neither force open the doors of his dwelling place nor assume the right to have them opened. But the love of God has fulfilled us beyond our wildest dreams: he has admitted us into his family. ‘We are God’s children now.’ This extremely strong affirmation may be understood in the proper meaning of the words and expressions that compose it: ‘Now,’ ‘We are’ and ‘Children of God.’ It certainly remains on the level of faith: we must wait for the appearance of the ‘Son of God’ so that by seeing what he is, what we are — ‘now’ — will become clear. And because faith alone reveals our true identity, the world can neither discover nor know God. Do not think, however, that to say ‘this comes from faith,’ indicates merely a personal, subjective conviction. On the contrary, it is a truth that comes from God and finds its guarantee in him.
What necessarily follows is fidelity to the commandment given by Jesus Christ: to recognise that he is the Son and to love one another, after all, we are all one family in God. This fidelity which we achieve with the help of grace, is the guarantee, in a concrete and immediate way, that we dwell in God and God in us. John often uses the verb ‘to dwell.’ Throughout his work this verb has a very real meaning. In God alone is life because he alone has life in full. Our dwelling in God and God in us denotes a mutual communion of life beyond all imagination. In order to grasp this, one must wait until God reveals himself, that one may see him as he is: we will recognise him ‘from the Spirit he gave us.’ It is a matter of communion with the intimate life of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, i. e. Admittance into the family of God.
We now for a moment turn our attention to the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. At the end of this story, Luke notes that Jesus was ‘filled with wisdom’ from his infancy. Today recounts the first manifestation of this wisdom which took place in the Temple, where Jesus excited the admiration of those learned in the Law. The last passage of Luke’s infancy narrative is a serious and solemn finale to the infancy account. While rich in psychological and human detail, it remains a lively and natural redaction that is also of great theological importance. It ends the introduction to the Gospel history.
It is at the Temple that the twelve-year old Jesus manifests his wisdom; and it will be at the Temple where he will end his teaching ministry. Now the legal scholars ‘are amazed at his intelligence and his answers;’ later they will oppose him. But the people will not tire of listening to him, and they will be ‘hanging on his words.’ During the Christmas season the liturgy enables us to contemplate, like the evangelist, the One who speaks of God and the things of God with an authority that no Doctor of the Law ever had. His keen insight is not simply that of exceptional intelligence, a sign of a naturally gifted child. It comes from a unique relationship with God.
At first glance, the story of what happened to the Holy Family after one of its pilgrimages to Jerusalem appears to be rather banal. Mary and Joseph could not find the young Jesus, already twelve-years old, on the evening of their return journey to Nazareth. Worried: they retraced their steps, looking for him. All ended well. They found him eventually in the Temple. Even in their relief, like any parent, they couldn’t refrain from reproaching him for his conduct: ‘Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress’ — He should have warned them and realised that by staying in Jerusalem without saying a word to anyone, he had caused them great anxiety. Taken thus, we can look at the story in several ways: the attitude of the parents of an unusual adolescent; the problem posed by such surprising conduct in a young boy, in all other ways, a model of submissiveness to his parents; the inevitable conflict of duties between obedience owed to parents verses the call of God; etc.. But such a reading misunderstands the nature and clear intention of the Gospel. It is not a collage of historical events meant to move or edify us; it is a narrative of salvation events in which the person and personality of Jesus are revealed. A reading does not deal with what Jesus said to his parents. Not only is this response the summit toward which the story moves; it has a profound meaning that must be discovered, i. e. Mary and Joseph’s complete stupefaction and incomprehension clearly point to this.
Jesus, a child like others, obeying his parents, yet, clearly possessing incomparable wisdom, has a mysterious relationship with the Father. The mystery of his Person is only revealed, little by little, through his obedience to the will of God. This veil will not be completely lifted until Easter, which is already on the horizon. It will not escape the attentive reader that Jesus is found — reappears — on the third day after his absence, as it will be three days between his death and resurrection.
The incomprehension of Mary and Joseph evokes that of the disciples, when the resurrected Jesus reproaches them by saying: ‘What little sense you have!…. Did not the Messiah have to undergo all this?’ This manner of speaking and arranging the story tends to make us believe that Luke wants us to refer to the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus (at the end of his Gospel. Lk 24:13-33), the moment when ‘What is now hidden will be made clear.’ — ‘His Mother meanwhile kept all these things in her heart.’ Luke repeats here, in an abbreviated form, what he had already said at the end of the story of the nativity (Lk 2:19) This is for our benefit. We must meditate constantly on the Gospel of the infancy and the texts used in the celebration of the Holy Family. They illuminate the rest of the Gospel, the increasing revelation of the mystery of Jesus, the meaning of his mission in light of the fulfilment of the ancient promises, the end, when Christ will be all in all.
Mary and Joseph travelled this road of faith before us. Joseph is no longer mentioned after the last episode of the infancy narrative. But isn’t he the model of the ‘upright man,’ humbly submissive to the word, faithful in carrying out his role, regarding Jesus? Mary will be mentioned only briefly and intermittently through her place in the story of the miracle at Cana, her silent witness at the cross, and her presence on the day of Pentecost will not be ignored. Beyond speaking of familial virtues, about the relations that must exist in the Christian community, of which the Holy family is the perfect model, the Feast of the Holy Family celebrates Christ who is revealed in daily realities because he is the Son of God, a man among us all.
‘He came among his own, the Messiah of the poor, he came, the child promised for centuries! He took flesh on our earth. He comes to us in these days the resurrected Christ of Easter, he comes to us the Lamb, the First Fruit of another age! He gives life to all his brethren. He will return at the last day, the Lord of glory, he will return, the King, conqueror among angels! He will bring us to his Father.’ (M. Coste 1986).
For we are his family. HAPPY FEAST
