COMMENT ON THE LITURGY OF THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY
Collect
O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee; and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Readings
Rm 12:1-5; Lk 2:41-50
The duty for Jews to respect religious holidays begins at the age of thirteen. The twelve years of Jesus in the episode narrated by Luke could correspond to the age in which Samuel received his call (1 Sam 3), but there was no real obligation, at his age, to spend the Passover feast in Jerusalem. The parents of Jesus probably went there every year because they were very religious. This should spur to go "an extra mile" those believers who limit themselves to relegating their faith to something marginal and occasional in their lives.
With the episode of the loss of Jesus in Jerusalem - unique in the tradition of the canonical Gospels and where the Lord is presented as a child observing the Law - the childhood story of the Gospel of Luke ends, right where it began, in the temple of Jerusalem, with the circumcision.
The narration shows the care of Joseph and Mary for the religious education of Jesus, but it becomes an opportunity for a total overturning of perspective: Jesus, lost and found, instructs his parents on their duty to carry out the will of the heavenly Father and on his full awareness of his divine nature. He who for his young age had to show himself as a simple disciple and hearer sits not at the feet of the doctors but among them, who marvel at his wisdom.
In Jesus the words of the Psalmist are fulfilled: "Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies" (Ps 8:2) The three days of his disappearance - full of apprehension for Joseph and Mary - recall the three days of Easter event. Also the question «Why were you looking for me?» it seems an echo of the angel's question to the women at the tomb: «Why do you look for the living among the dead?» (Lk 24:5). An invitation, therefore, to look at present events with the eyes of faith and a preparation for things to come.
Referring to God as his Father, Jesus puts natural bonds into the background. A theme that will also be the subject of his mature preaching: «Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me» (Mt 10:37). But far from severing family ties, faith is able to deepen them, to embrace the whole world in Christ with his own charity.
The apparently harsh answer given by Jesus to his mother indicates that what matters to him, and which he feels as an absolute need, is to fulfill the plan of salvation entrusted to him by the Father, which will take place at his last Passover in Jerusalem. Perhaps Mary will think of these words when she stops under the cross of her son. But the story of Jesus' loss in Jerusalem has a happy ending. Jesus is found, just as the light of the resurrection will follow the dramatic episode of the crucifixion and death.
In the face of the trials of life and in the face of our own falls, we too may lose the sense of Christ; we must then return to the place and time when we lost track of it, remembering how and when we lost it, and looking for it in the center of our hearts, where dwells the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of peace, the temple of God. We will be amazed by what he has to say.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
