29 December 2024 - Feast of the Holy Family
1 Sam 1:20...28; 1 John 3:1...24; Luke 2:41-52
Homily
Given that today is the Feast of the Holy Family, it is tempting to look for lessons about the family life of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in this account of Jesus' escapade to the Temple on his way up to Jerusalem with his parents for Easter at the age of twelve. But in so doing, we would be introducing into this beautiful narrative concerns that were undoubtedly not those of Luke. As we have seen on more than one occasion, the first two chapters of Luke's Gospel use highly symbolic and theological language. Luke makes no claim to inform us about Jesus' childhood, about which he himself probably knows very little. Instead, he announces the main themes of his Gospel, which begins with Jesus' baptism in the Jordan by his cousin John the Baptist.
In the two introductory chapters, which are in fact an introduction to his two Books (his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles), Luke brings Jesus twice to the Temple in Jerusalem with his parents. Each time, Jesus returns to Nazareth where he continues to grow in age and wisdom, before God and man. Luke reports nothing about his life in Nazareth, except that he was submissive to his parents.
These two ascents of Jesus to the Temple of Jerusalem already prepare the great definitive ascent to Jerusalem at the end of his life (Luke 19, 45ff). There are many elements common to these three ‘ascents’. Each time, they come to the Temple out of respect for a prescription in the Law. The first time is for the presentation of the newborn child, and the other two times for the annual celebration of the Passover. Each time, there are words that provoke astonishment. At the presentation, ‘the child's father and mother were astonished at what [Simeon] was saying about him’; at the second ascension, all those who heard the young Jesus discussing with the doctors of the law were astonished and his parents did not understand his reply when he told them that he must be with his Father's affairs; finally, at Jesus' last preaching in the Temple, no one understood him when he announced the destruction of the Temple. The three days during which Mary and Joseph search for Jesus symbolically foreshadow the three days in the tomb. Mary did not understand, just as she will not understand at the foot of the Cross, but she kept everything in her heart, including the announcement made by Simeon during the first ascent to the Temple.
These stories are not just about Jesus, but about his family. The family is a place of passage. It is through the family that we first enter the world, from which we must one day leave to take our own place in society. In the same way, belonging to a people or a nation should be an introduction to the great human family, rather than leading to narrow, blind nationalism, as is often the case. Moments of rupture are necessary for growth, just as leaving the womb is necessary for birth.
Today's Gospel story describes some of these breaks and announces more radical ones. Jesus, who had first come to the Temple as a little child, reappeared there this time in an attitude of authority, even though he was still a child of twelve. He shows his intelligence in front of the teachers of the Law, and we can already see the fight to the death that these same teachers will wage against him when they begin to see him as a threat. And why will he be a threat to them? - Simply because everything he teaches about his ‘Father’ will upset their teaching about God and render their ‘religious’ world obsolete. The fight to the finish has already begun.
Jesus will be the loser in this struggle, because he will be put to death. A loser, but only in appearance; for there will be those ‘three days’ already symbolically announced in our story, at the end of which Jesus' answer to Mary will be fully realised: “It is to my Father that I must go”.
Once all the characters in the drama are in place, Luke brings Jesus back to Nazareth with Mary and Joseph, for an uneventful life over the next twenty years or so, during which ‘he grew in wisdom, stature and grace before the eyes of God and man’.
Isn't this the mystery, and often the tragedy, of every human family: to see its members drift apart one after the other, each living their own mystery and taking their place in the great human community?
Armand VEILLEUX