Coming Into Our Own

Gospel Reading: Luke 2: 41-52

41 Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. 43 When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did no know it. 44 Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends,. 45 When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search fro him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” 49He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they did not understand what he said to them. 51 Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor

The story of the presentation of Jesus in the temple shows us that Jesus, Son of Man, belonged to a Jewish family with its customs and tradition. He grew up normal, so to speak, and Luke establishes a connection between the infant Jesus whom shepherds guard and angels sing and the Jesus who ministered to the sick, the disabled, the poor and the oppressed. More than a Christological sequencing however, the Presentation in the Temple and especially today’s gospel offer us an understanding of Jesus beyond historical details and the need to question his origins. What was Luke trying to say when he chose the story of Jesus finding in the temple?

It may have been to answer a question that must have arisen: if during his public ministry Jesus worked miracles and claimed oneness with God, when did he acquire such powers? During his forty days in the desert? at his baptism? This story gives us a glimpse that he already had these powers from an early age.

The finding in the temple, however, becomes more relevant as we reflect on Luke’s characterization of the Holy Family, especially Mary and Jesus.

Mary is suddenly afflicted with the very real sorrow of any parent: not being able to understand her own son. Suddenly, Jesus talks about my Father who until then has been Joseph. Suddenly, there is my Father’s business and he was discussing with the elders and Scribes. They did not understand, Luke narrates, and we can remember the many times we too are thrust in a situation we do not / cannot understand: an unexpected illness, getting wrongly accused, the onslaught of natural calamities, the seeming “luck” of Gloria Arroyo who continues to hold power despite a negative trend in popularity, and the like. We are invited to continue to ponder and hold on in hope in the God of history who has shown us the power of his might and has raised the lowly

Jesus response likewise bears upon us another growing up reality. Children are unique persons, different from and not extensions of parents or mentors or elders. At a certain point in our lives, after being nurtured and nourished (rightly or wrongly), we come into our own and take charge of our lives, no matter how much it hurts them. Jesus coming of age, when he chose to engage the elders in discussion and thus not to go home with his parents and relatives, bewildered and hurt his parents but he stood for what he knew in his heart to be his most important relationship: his relationship with God. The question begs: how often do you stand witness to your own relationship with your God?

To ponder, to testify, to wait. Indeed, the story then goes on to say that after declaring he was just about his Father's business, Jesus went home with his parents and grew in all ways. No other boyhood stories, 18 more years of his life captured in that one sentence. The Messiah was born but Israel still waited. These are stances or attitudes that require much faith but point the way to true freedom. The invitation is to nurture a relationship of fidelity to the word of God revealed in so many ways in our lives through Scripture, events, the cries of the poor and the increasingly insistent cries of the earth.

The gospel reading comes to us on the last day of 2006, a time of “crossing over”, making that one step into another unknown. Luke attempted to bridge Jesus’ infancy and ministry with a “slice of life” of the Holy Family and we receive the invitation to ponder, to testify, to wait.

Indeed, the story then goes on to say that after declaring he was just about his Father’s business, Jesus went home with his parents and grew in all ways. No other boyhood stories, 18 more years of his life captured in that one sentence. The Messiah was born but Israel still waited. These are stances or attitudes that require much faith but point the way to true freedom. We are called to nurture a relationship of fidelity to the word of God revealed in so many ways in our lives “through Scripture, events, the cries of the poor and the increasingly insistent cries of the earth“so that we may ‘act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with God’, especially for our country now so severely tried at all fronts and in all levels of society.

As the year closes and another one dawns on us, may we truly come into our own. In our own persons and also in our own nation. May we learn to center our lives on the One who continues to create and recreate with us so that the universe may truly reflect the beauty and goodness and truth of our Creator

Terence Osorio

Canossian Justice and Peace