Holy Family - Year C

I reflect on the themes of growth, maturity, and family dynamics within the context of family and faith. Drawing from a personal anecdote about a young boy’s transition into adolescence, I delve into the biblical story of twelve-year-old Jesus during the Passover pilgrimage. This unique moment in scripture highlights Jesus’ early understanding of his mission and his conscious decision to stay behind in the temple. I invite listeners to ponder Jesus’ profound statement about being “about his Father’s business” and connect this to our own spiritual journeys. Emphasising the importance of family, love, and grace, I encourage gratitude and trust in God’s healing work.

00:00:01 One of the nice things of this period of the the year is that we often do get to, you know, to catch up with people that the, the world kind of shifts in its focus and attention, and there is a little bit more focus, a little bit more time just to be with one another. And so I was able to to catch up with some friends and some of them I hadn’t seen since, you know, earlier in the year. And it really struck all of us. You know, they’ve got a young son who is now going into year ten. And it really there was this marked change in his life, you know, since we saw him. I think Anzac Day was probably the last time we saw him. And, you know, this shooting up. And his voice had really deepened and all of this had kind of happened. And that sense of just watching that growth, that change, you know, growing in maturity, all of of that, that that sometimes happens at least physically with boys.

00:01:02 Sometimes it takes a bit longer for the, the prefrontal cortex to kind of kick into gear. We know that the maturity of that doesn’t happen for a long time in the process. But that experience of the change, the growth, the maturity, often it does take it its time and there is a lot of to and fro in the midst of all of that. So as the the family go up as devout Jews to Jerusalem for the Passover, and this is the only mention of the Passover in any of the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke until the time of the passion. So it’s kind of unusual in in that way. And we’re told that every year they would make their pilgrimage journey. And from Nazareth, up in the very north of Galilee, down to Jerusalem, you know, it would take 3 or 4 days at least. We’re particularly in a caravan to, to make that journey. So it’s a sizable commitment. And there would have been a lot of traffic as there is, you know, for us as well at the time.

00:02:09 And so they there. They take part in the festival. And then as they’re heading back, it’s not that Joseph and Mary neglect him. It’s not that they lose him, but that Jesus chooses to stay behind. He’s a 12 year old, so he’s on the cusp of manhood within the Jewish understanding. You know, the bar mitzvah happens when a person becomes 13. And so that’s when they are placed bar under mitzvah, under the law. And so they become full members of the covenant community. And so this he’s on the cusp of all of this, just on the edge of that experience of growth and maturity. And so as he’s making those choices now for himself, he sees that opportunity, undoubtedly, with all of these learned people who are wise in the law, wise in the scriptures, and he wants to to continue to ponder with them, to to ask them these questions and to offer his own reflections on all of this. It was the practice within Judaism to to really open that scope, to pondering, to.

00:03:20 To announcing that grace and that gift, you know, among each other. And so as he does, you know, there is that astounding kind of quality that the people are amazed at, at his depth of knowledge, his understanding. But of course, this doesn’t help Paul, Mary and Joseph as they’re frantically searching. And I’m sure we’ve all had those experiences. I’ve been one of those kids that’s run off, and certainly my older brothers were more famous for disappearing at various times and doing the quick count of to make sure there were still five children in the in the car, you know, after a service station stop or whatever it was. And sometimes, you know, kids would get missed and all of that. But that experience of trying to to search for the child and, you know, taking three whole days before they’re able to finally, lay side on him and you hear the exasperation in Mary’s voice. What have you done to this? You know, and I’m sure you know that that sense of Mary is the plastic saint, you know, always perfect, all amazing and a bit of sure.

00:04:24 There were times when Jesus kind of pushed her buttons just as firmly as any young boy might push any parents buttons, you know? And so all of that experience of the family are part of that. But then we’re told that Jesus says, didn’t you know that I had to be about my father’s? And it’s it’s a word in Greek that it’s really kind of hard to translate. So you’ll see a whole range of different translations in our English Bibles. It might be business, it might be the father’s things, it might be the father’s house. The Greek is is kind of vague. It doesn’t actually specify anything that it’s kind of pointing to. It’s this plural, something that this the father’s something’s that is there at the heart. And it’s an interesting thing to, well, what is that something, you know, And what was the sense of Jesus as a 12 year old? That he had to be about his father’s business, his father’s house? You know, what was the thing that was really kind of driving him even now, as he’s beginning to grow, beginning to to make sense of the world, beginning to to come into his own.

00:05:39 And of course, we really need to read the rest of the gospel to hear that, you know, ask the first words that are spoken in the Gospel of Luke by Jesus. You know, these words are significant, but perhaps it’s the first time that he preaches publicly that we’ll get in just a couple of chapters time when we have Jesus going back to Nazareth. Now, as the full grown up, as a fully matured man, and he opens the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, reading from chapter what we call chapter 61, the spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for it has anointed me and sent me to bring good news to the poor, to announce this year of fever to bring freedom to those who are prisoners, to set free all of those who are burdened in any way. And it seems that that’s really what this Christmas season is all about. It’s not just that sense of the call for social justice, to be aware of those who are experiencing that. But I think we also realize that so much of that is true of our own hearts, our own lives, that there is this need to make that announcement within our own experience, that wherever we might be feeling oppressed, wherever we might be feeling poor and and hard done by wherever there is that sense of there is a lack of freedom because of addiction or because of other situations, wounds that we continue to carry, family burdens that we continue to be weighed down by.

00:07:16 That there is this message of in the father’s house, there’s room for us to find freedom in the father’s house. We can experience that amazing love that we heard in our second reading today that the father has lavished upon us this incredible gift of his love and life and goodness. Let’s indeed allow that grace to hold us in our families as we give thanks for our parents and for for all of the the gift and the life that they have shown. As we pray for our children, as we acknowledge that they are growing and maturity as we sit back in wonder and awe at the stupid things they say, and the most amazing and beautiful things that they say, that we bring all of that into this experience of the father’s house, the father’s gift, the father’s grace that is available to all of us, to experience that life and that goodness, and to help that to be the center of our families as we pray for all of our experiences, all of our grace, all of our stumbling as we offer it all into the grace and the hands of God, praying for him to continue to do that work, to bring us to maturity, to bring us to life in God.