FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY – YEAR C
Commentary of Fr. Fernando Armellini
A good Sunday to everyone.
The narration about Jesus being forgotten by his parents in Jerusalem has always raised several questions. How could Mary and Joseph leave Jerusalem without first verifying if the son was with them? Let's say right away that it does not seem plausible as a chronicle. They tried to explain this fact in the past, saying that two caravans were traveling. One is only for men, and the other is only for women. So, while traveling with men, Joseph would have thought that Jesus, although he was almost an adult, still preferred to be with his mother, whom he had always loved very much. And Mary must have thought that Jesus, all grown up and already an adult, preferred to be with men. Today, we smile at this naive explanation because the account of the two caravans is pure invention. There were not two caravans. Therefore, it is difficult for this to be a chronicle. This is not credible.
On the other hand, we are surprised by the behavior of Jesus: he stayed in Jerusalem without informing his parents. Has it not occurred to him what anguish would he have caused his parents? And when they found him and rightly reproached him, after searching for him for three days, he seemed surprised they got worried. This has no integrity as a chronicle. And there is another detail. How is it that they find him after 'three days'? Also, how is it that they did not seek him in the temple first?
When I think about the reality of the old city of Jerusalem today, which corresponds, more or less, to the Jerusalem of the time of Jesus, it would be enough to spread the word that they are looking for a child, and they will find him in one hour. Then we ask ourselves: Are we facing a chronicle or theology text composed of biblical images? We already saw that as a chronicle, it does not work.
Let us now try to understand what Luke wants to tell us so as not to lose this precious message. The evangelist gives us the first valuable clue to correctly interpret the text in the story. In the story, he never names Mary and Joseph. He always says: the parents, the father, the mother. And when the Semites speak of 'father,' 'our father,' 'of parents', 'of our fathers,' without naming them, they refer to 'parents' as representative characters of reality.
In Israel, the father represents the link with tradition. He is the one who must educate the son on fidelity to what is commanded from the most remote times. It is the link with the history of the past. And for an Israelite, the mother is Israel: the one who has begotten her people. Israel is the beloved wife of the Lord her God. She is the mother of every Israelite. Again, the link with the past returns to one’s history and tradition.
We also find this 'mother' in the Gospel. In the Gospel of John, Mary is not named. It is said that the mother was present at the foot of the cross, but it does not say Mary is the mother. We must pay attention to this expression. Luke introduces these parents into the narrative from the beginning as representatives of tradition. They are rigorous in the observance of tradition. It seems, then, that they represent the tradition of Israel.
The evangelist says, "For the feast of Passover, his parents went every year to Jerusalem." The law prescribed that you should go to Jerusalem three times a year, three pilgrimages: for Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tents. What happened most often is that only one trip was made. And for those who lived far away, even this one trip was practically impossible. Think of those who lived in Rome or Ephesus. For that reason, for many Jews, it was great luck, a great joy to at least make once in a lifetime what was called the 'holy journey' to see the house of the Lord, the holy city.
Then the question: How will Jesus behave facing this tradition of Israel? If parents represent observance and tradition, how will Jesus, the Messiah, behave? Will he embody or conflict with this tradition with what has always been commanded and taught in Israel? Luke has already introduced a mysterious prophecy in his Gospel. When his parents took Jesus to the temple for purification, Simeon took the child in his arms, and he addressed Mary, saying: "He is here for the falling and rising of many in Israel, a sign of contradiction. And a sword will pierce your soul so that out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed." It is a mysterious prophecy but clear to us. But neither Mary nor Joseph understood it, the evangelist says.
Simeon did not announce a quiet and peaceful insertion of Jesus in the context of the traditions of his people. On the contrary, Simeon has foreseen that there would be surprising options for all, even for his parents, who had grown up in this context of the observance of all that had been taught and received. The evangelist has already noticed that the parents do not understand. They have not understood, from the beginning, that God's Messiah would not follow the people's expectations. He would be, yes, a glorious Messiah, but they expected a 'glorious' Messiah according to the criteria of greatness from this world. Jesus will not follow this tradition. He will introduce an absolute novelty. He will be glorious, but according to the glory of God. And the glory of God is not to dominate; the glory of God is love and service. Listen to this evangelical narrative:
“Each year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. After they had completed their days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days, they found him in the temple, sitting amid the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said, ‘Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.’ And he said to them, ‘Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's affairs?’ They did not understand what he told them.”
The obligation to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover began at age 13. And Jesus has only 12. This tells us that we are facing a family that observes traditions to the point that they do not wait until their son's 13th birthday to take him to Jerusalem. They have educated him in the observance of what was always done. For the Passover feast, the pilgrims stayed in the city for between 3 and 7 days. And it is at the moment of leaving Jerusalem that Jesus remains in the town.
The word that is used in Greek is not properly 'stay' in the city, but 'resist' in Jerusalem, alone (ὑπέμεινεν - hypemeinen), while the others went away. Let's try to understand what the Evangelist alludes to here. Everyone was convinced that Jesus would follow the path of everyone, the path of his parents, relatives, and friends. Instead, he resists in Jerusalem. He does not follow them.
The message of the evangelist is clear. The Messiah of God, that adolescent who is about to become an adult, begins to deny his parents' expectations. They were convinced he would follow them, but he did not. He would follow a different path from what they had expected. It will be the path traced, not by people, the parents, or the Father. The parents look for him, and after three days, they find him in the temple. That three-day search is a clear allusion to another desperate three-day search: that of the women on the third day of Easter. They will seek Jesus in the wrong place, among the dead, among the defeated, the condemned in history. Instead, and to God's surprise, they find him alive, the victor of death. He surprised everyone by showing that the victors were not the dominators and powerful of this world but the servants—those who donate their lives for love.
These two paths differ in how parents, tradition, and the winners of this world follow, and the new path that Jesus follows is not that of the parents but that of the Father, where the one who gives his life for love wins. This is the surprise. In the temple, Jesus is sitting in the middle of the doctors; they listen to him and ask him questions. Naturally, it is the rabbi sitting amid the disciples, and here is Jesus the Teacher sitting, and the students are the connoisseurs of the Scripture who educate the people in waiting for a Messiah that they have in mind. But what they expect is not God's Messiah. What is the reaction of these scribes who are around Jesus who is sitting?
The Greek term used here is ἐξίσταντο = existence, which does not mean that they were amazed but that 'they were beside themselves.' This expression indicates a negative surprise. They were stunned by his responses and that he disagreed with their traditional interpretations of the sacred texts. And they ask him questions ... This means they realize that only he can illuminate the darkness of the Old Testament texts. Let's remember that after the Resurrection, what will Jesus do? He will open the minds of his disciples to the understanding of the Scripture. The Old Testament becomes understandable only when it is read in the light of Christ. Without Jesus, the Old Testament is incomprehensible; it does not have a definitive meaning. It is incomplete.
And now the surprise of his parents. Different from the rabbis. Another verb is used ἐκπλήσσομαι - eplésomai = amazed. But neither do they understand the novelty, and we should not wonder about this incomprehension. Accepting novelty is always tricky, especially for us. We do not understand his way if we do not marvel at Jesus's choices. We want him to agree with our path, follow our traditions, our way of thinking ... but no, he follows another path. And if we do not marvel at Jesus's options, we have not understood him.
Remember what the angel had said to Zachariah: 'Your son will reconcile the hearts of the parents with the children.’ The heart of an Israelite is the mind. And the work of the Baptist will not be to convince the children to follow the tradition but must reconcile the parents' hearts towards the novelty.
Jesus responded to his parents with two questions. The first: "Why were you looking for me?" These are the first words that Jesus pronounces in the Gospel of Luke; therefore, they are very important. From the historical point of view, this question does not make sense: "Why were you looking for me?" It's like saying, 'You are asking why they are looking for you.' And we are surprised that Jesus does not offer any excuse, indicating that he has noticed the anguish he has caused his parents. Still, some people look for a meaning to these words, considering them chronicles, but the message is obvious—what the evangelist wants to give us.
Jesus says to the 'fathers,' to the custodians of the tradition, to those who embody the way of thinking and reasoning, to judge from tradition to the way everyone behaves, to those who say that they have always done so and that has always been the norm ... he says: 'Be attentive because you are doing something you should not do ...’ What is it? To seize me and make me walk your way. I cannot go on the path of your tradition, thinking, and judging.
This question is directed to us. Why do we look for Jesus? To make him do what we want? What do we expect from him? Let us be careful not to lead Jesus to our paths, to convince him that what we do is right. Pay attention because we can be disappointed and not find him on our way, by our side. It is vital to keep the heart open to the Gospel's novelty. The second question he asks his parents is: Do they know every child has a destiny? And this destiny derives from the identity with which God knows him, not what the future parents have in mind.
Parents want to give continuity to their projects, dreams, and traditions. The family is the natural environment where the person is called to be born and grow. But the child does not stay in the family. At a particular moment, they must separate to follow God's path for that person. And that road is your identity. The identity that parents must discover and then launch their children into life. This is the first part of the Gospel text. As we have seen, it is not a chronicle. It is theology.
Then, there is a short but rich reference in the message about man's growth in Jesus of Nazareth. Let's listen:
“He went down with them, came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them, and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom, age, and favor before God and man.”
Parents are called by their names in this last part of the text. And here we go back to normal, to the chronicle. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus return to their everyday life in Nazareth. Luke tells us about this life in Nazareth after spending the Passover week in Jerusalem. We can gather some messages for our family life. First of all, the son submits to his parents.
What was understood in Israel by 'submission'? Submitting to parents meant letting yourself be modeled by them. It meant assimilating the values they had believed and incarnated in their lives. Mary and Joseph had embodied these values in the Torah, in the Prophets, and then they were called to play in the life of Jesus the mission assigned by God for them; we find that mission in the book of Deuteronomy, in chapter 6: "Listen Israel, the Lord our God, is only one. Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength" (Deut 6:4-5). These precepts—what is said about the family in the book of Deuteronomy—"will remain in your memory, you will instill them in your children. And you shall speak of them when they are at home and on their way, lying down and up" (Deut 6:6-7).
The Word of God will always be your point of reference, and about this Word of God, you must speak continuously to your children. Obeying parents means Jesus received this teaching from the lips of Joseph and Mary and opened his eyes wide to their parents because they embodied this message of the Torah.
The second teaching we take from the Evangelist's observation concerning the mother. He says: “His mother kept all these things in her heart.” Mary and Joseph find before them something new. Jesus did not follow the traditional way of interpreting the Bible. And his parents marveled, like everybody else, about the new options of how Jesus was behaving. What did Mary do? She does not understand. She did not understand anything, but she had not rejected the novelty. Mary is the woman who has accepted the novelty even when she does not understand it. And this is why she will be transformed from being the ‘mother of Jesus’ to a ‘disciple of Christ.’
What is the message for us? Facing what happens in our life, facing events that are inexplicable, incomprehensible, and even absurd, there is a behavior that must be assumed to follow the example of Mary. Observe all those things in our hearts, as she has done. It was difficult for her to understand and accept what happened to her son. The path chosen by her son was not that of success or triumph but that of the gift of life, which was an upheaval in Mary's mind. What has happened is that she has “kept all these things in her heart.”
Finally, the human growth of Jesus: "Jesus grew in knowledge, stature, and grace before God and men." When I contemplate, throughout the Gospel, the man Jesus: the values that he believes in, the positions he assumes in the encounter with sinners, his love for the poor, and last, his rejection of Pharisaic hypocrisy, his rejection of the false religion of rites; when he shows his heartfelt attachment to God and his love for his brothers and sisters ... when I see this man Jesus, that perfectly reproduces the face of the Father of heaven, I ask myself, How could this man Jesus have been able to do all this? I find this answer: God had to choose his parents very well to put them together with his Son because they had to mold the face of Jesus in a way that perfectly reproduced the face of the Father in heaven.
And when I contemplate the face of the man Jesus, I say to myself that it is the human face incarnated by Joseph and Mary. Jesus was obedient; he assimilated the face of love he saw in his parents. Today, parents are justly concerned with health, with the instruction about the profession of their children. But the person is not reduced to this. Other values characterize a person, and the first is the relationship with God, the meaning that must be given to life.
If Christian parents want to resemble Joseph and Mary, they must train their children to resemble Jesus truly. And children will resemble Jesus if they have incarnated the human example in Mary and Joseph.
I wish everyone a good Sunday and a good week.
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