December 29, 2024 – The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph [YEAR C]
Fr. Matthew Siegman
Sirach 3:2-6,12-14 + Colossians 3:12-21 + Luke 2:41-52
[other options: I Samuel 1:20-22,24-28 + Colossians 3:12-17 + 1 John 3:1-2,21-24]
On this Sunday in the Octave of Easter, we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. There are many possible combinations of readings for this day, all containing beautiful insights for meditation on the family. I will focus today, though, on insights from the Finding in the Temple that we hear from St. Luke’s Gospel. There are three things, in particular, that I would like to briefly reflect on: the inability of Joseph and Mary to understand why this has happened, Jesus’s instruction (not a rebuke!) to Joseph and Mary, and Jesus’s obedience.
“Son, why have you done this to us?”
After their realization that Jesus was missing, Joseph and Mary spent three days searching for him. When they found him in the temple, they “were astonished” and could not understand why Jesus had done this. Certainly, they reasoned, he would know the great anxiety that it caused them. Certainly, they reasoned, he would know that they would be looking for him.
How well does this remind us of our own lives? So often, in the darkest and most challenging moments of our lives, we feel as if our Lord has abandoned us. We might be full of anxiousness and stress and worry, feeling totally abandoned by the Lord. At these times, we are tempted with every bone in our body to turn away from our Lord, but instead we must make a choice to recognize that the Lord is still with us. Perhaps in our prayer, when we cry out in our suffering to the Lord, we will echo these words of our Blessed Mother, “why have you done this to me?” Just like Joseph and Mary did not understand why Jesus stayed behind in the temple, we often do not understand why God permits the things that he does.
“Why were you looking for me?”
The lectionary translation of Jesus’s response says “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” The Latin and Greek texts, however, do not explicitly mention the term house, so we can also understand this verse to say “Do you now know that I must be in the place of my Father?” or even “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” At first glance, this might seem to be a rebuke, but this doesn’t correct. The following few verses demonstrate that Joseph and Mary have an incredibly important role to play in Jesus’s life on this earth.
What seem to be happening is that Joseph and Mary have not yet fully grasped the extent of their son’s mission and what it will mean for them. In his response, Jesus is teaching them that his first responsibility will always be doing the will of his divine Father. Like when he permitted Lazarus to die before going to heal him, he allowed this to happen so that his greater mission, to do the will of the Father, might be more fully revealed.
While we might not understand why God permits the things that he does, this verse can help us begin to understand that there is someone greater than us in charge. Our Father in Heaven, who created us out of love, has a mission for each of us. Sometimes, he must teach us things that are painful or challenging to learn. In my own life, I have been graced to recognize that God has done this over and over again. I did not understand why certain things were happening, but later in my life I realized that he was preparing me for an even greater challenge down the road. This is not to say that our sufferings are not real or that they should simply be brushed away. They are, however, given
meaning when we recognize that God works through them for us and for the building up of his kingdom.
He “was obedient to them”.
Perhaps the most incredible moment of the entire Gospel passage is that Jesus left the temple and came to Nazareth with his parents and “was obedient to them.” Immediately after explaining to Joseph and Mary that he must do his Father’s will, he then subjects himself to the will of his human parents. This is normal and expected behavior for most children; however, Jesus is not most children. He is the incarnate Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God. For him to submit to the rule of his human parents speaks of the great humility of God, and it also shows us the incredible dignity and importance of the human family.
The human family is the core unit of all civilization. It is the “domestic church”, where we first learn to worship God. It has been called the “first society”, where we first learn to behave and to interact with those around us. We were created to be in community, and this community is first experienced in the family. The structure of society was, originally, based around an extended family. When our families break down, there is strife and suffering in the community. When our families thrive, the community thrives.
As a priest, I have seen families suffer tremendously, and there are two roads that they can follow. The families that cling to one another and that remain united in the face of immense suffering are families that come out the other side. Through the pain they are all changed, but each members of the family is stronger than they ever could have imagined. The families that allow themselves to drift apart or be separated in the face of these challenges, though, are a different story. They are not able to rely on each other to bear the pain, and each member of the family emerges with new scars and wounds. (I always must note that there are certain tragic scenarios, such as violent abuse, where families must separate for their safety.)
In the Gospel today, the Holy Family is confronted with a moment of fear and anxiety. Joseph and Mary cannot find their son. But they cling to one another and eventually find him, alive and well. The Holy Family emerges from a time of great stress and anxiety stronger than they began, and through this event Jesus is already preparing his parents for the time of his Passion, where he was seemingly absent for three days and finally was found alive and victorious, doing the will of his Father.