First Sunday after Epiphany, Sermon #2, by Bishop Geremia Bonomelli, D.D.

When Jesus was twelve years old, they going up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast, and having fulfilled the days, when they returned the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem, and His parents knew it not. And thinking that He was in the company, they came a day’s journey, and sought Him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And not finding Him, they returned into Jerusalem seeking Him. And it came to pass that after three days they found Him in the Temple sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heard Him were astonished at His wisdom and His answers. And seeing Him, they wondered. And His mother said to Him: Son, why hast Thou done so to us T behold Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing. And He said to them: How is it that you sought Me? did you not know that I must he about My Father’s business? And they understood not the word that He spoke unto them. And He went down with them, and came to Nazareth; and was subject to them. And His mother kept all these words in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age, and grace with God and men. – Luke 2:42-52

We have just celebrated the Epiphany or the manifestation of Our Lord to the magi, and today the Church reminds us of His second manifestation in the Temple of Jerusalem, in the midst of the Doctors of the Law, where He permitted a ray of that divine wisdom to escape Him, which later on He dispensed so lavishly and so marvelously among the people. The particular circumstances attaching to this fact are highly instructive for all, but more especially for you, parents, and for you, dear children, and I beg you to listen to them.

The Hebrews had but one Temple, the great Temple of Jerusalem, on Mount Moria. All the people were obliged by law to go to this Temple on the three principal feasts of the year, namely, the Pasch, which commemorated the liberation from Egyptian bondage and always fell on the day of the full moon of March; Pentecost, which commemorated the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai, fifty days after the Pasch; and the Scenopegia or the Tabernacles, which commemorated the dwelling in the desert in tents, and fell in autumn. Women and children under twelve years of age were dispensed from this law. Still it was a pious custom for women, and for children who had not completed their twelfth year, occasionally to make this pilgrimage.

Joseph and Mary, according to custom, went yearly to Jerusalem to celebrate the Pasch, and Jesus, when He had completed His twelfth year, went with them. The Pasch that year, it has been computed, fell on the twenty-second or the twenty-third of March.

And here I may make a trite, but useful and important observation. Joseph observed the law with exactness; Mary being a woman, and therefore not bound by the law, and Jesus, being the God-Man, and hence above all law, nevertheless conformed to it from a profoundly religious spirit and to give an example to us all. Parents, Joseph and Mary teach you by their example that you should go to the house of God to fulfill your religious duties and to teach your children by your good example. And you, children, should keep before your eyes the example of Jesus Christ, who when twelve years of age went with Joseph and His Mother to the Temple to adore the majesty of His Father.

And here is another observation that may he profitable to all. The distance from Nazareth to Jerusalem is about eighty miles; the roads were had, the country for the most part mountainous and infested with hands of highwaymen, who waylaid, robbed, and murdered travelers. The journey then was a very trying one and not exempt from danger; still Joseph, Mary, and Jesus did not shrink from making it. We have the Church at our very door, in which is offered up daily the Holy Sacrifice, of which those offered in the Temple of Jerusalem were but faint figures; there, too, the Gospel is preached and the sacraments administered, and still we are negligent about going to it and make nothing of offending God by frequently violating the grave precept which obliges us to assist at Mass on Sunday and feast-days of obligation.

What happened at Jerusalem? “The child Jesus remained there and His parents knew it not.” Do not think it strange that this should have happened without the slightest fault of Joseph and Mary. First of all we may take it for granted that Jesus so arranged things that Joseph and His Mother should not advert to His remaining in Jerusalem. But aside from this the fact is easily explained when we consider how these large crowds of people made the journey. They went in bands or companies of friends, or townsfolk, as we should say, the men separated from the women and the children generally with the women. In the crowd and confusion at the moment of starting, Mary naturally thought that Jesus was with Joseph, and Joseph as naturally thought that He was with Mary, and thus they set out on the journey, leaving Jesus in Jerusalem.

“And thinking that He was in the company” says the Evangelist, “they came a day’s journey and sought Him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance.” In the evening, at the first halting place, where they were to pass the night and where the various companies came together, Mary and Joseph noticed that Jesus was not with either, and they at once began to search for Him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances, but to no purpose. No one could give them any information concerning Him, and they were forced to conclude that He had remained behind in Jerusalem.

The night had already come on and they were obliged to stay where they were until morning, but with what misgivings and sorrow of heart, God only knows. Jesus was to them everything, their life, and their all, and the thought that He had strayed away in a great city, in a city at that time filled with strangers and, worse still, the theater of sudden uprisings and violent suppressions, was to them an agony. And it may be, too, that these two holy souls were harrowed by a vague fear that they had been wanting in their duty toward Jesus and that in punishment for their neglect He had forsaken them. What a night that was for Joseph and Mary! What cruel doubts crowded upon them, what distress and anguish! How they must have gone back in thought over the events of their past lives, over the journey to Jerusalem, over all the words that Jesus had spoken, seeking if possible to find some reason to explain so distressing and mysterious a loss. You fathers, and especially you mothers, can alone feel what Joseph and Mary suffered, their grief and their desolation.

My friends, a soul separated from Jesus and deprived of His grace is indeed in a bad way; it is shrouded in the darkness of night, seeking Him and longing for Him, as one in darkness seeks and longs for light.

At the first dawn of day Joseph and Mary “returned to Jerusalem seeking Him,” and they must have arrived there after night had set in, fatigued by their long journey. It was useless to think of searching for Jesus at that hour and they were obliged to be resigned to pass another night in anxious and painful suspense.

But did not Joseph and Mary know that Jesus was the Son of God? Why should they fear concerning Him? Yes, they knew that and believed it with absolute certainty, and yet they feared and were borne down by grief; they feared, not for Jesus, but for themselves: they were home down by grief, because He who was their life was not with them; they loved and therefore did they fear and were crashed under their weight of sorrow.

You fathers and mothers, who allow your children, sons and daughters, to run at large, to wander up and down the streets and through the public squares until late in the night, with dangerous or doubtful companions, exposed to every sort of danger and temptation, contrast your conduct with that of Joseph and Mary, who, though they had nothing to fear for their Son, sought Him, anxious and sorrowing, until they found Him.

Finally, at the dawn of the third day they set out again with heavy hearts in search of Jesus. Whither did they turn their steps? To the Temple. They well knew that if He could be found anywhere He would be there.

And when we have lost Jesus and His grace through sin, where shall we seek Him? In the Church, where His divine truths are heard; in the Church, at the feet of His ministers, where, together with pardon for sin, we receive the grace that restores us to the friendship of God; in the Church, where He abides in the Blessed Sacrament, and where we may receive Him into our hearts.

Having entered the Temple, which was crowded, and with difficulty making their way through the throng, they pushed on to where the Doctors of the Law and the priests were gathered, and looking anxiously about they were filled with unspeakable joy on seeing Jesus “sitting in the midst of the Doctors hearing them and ashing them questions.” Instantly all thought of what they had suffered was forgotten and their hearts were flooded with joy, coming in upon them like a tide of new life.

No one was permitted to sit in the presence of the Doctors and teachers of the Law; why, then, was this privilege granted to a poor boy of twelve years of age, alone and unknown! We must necessarily suppose that during the preceding days Jesus had given such evidences of superhuman wisdom that to sit in the midst of the Doctors of the Law, to listen to them, and in turn to put them questions, was considered an honor due Him. And Saint Luke adds that “all who heard Him were astonished at His wisdom and His answers.” The subject of His questions and answers, so replete with divine wisdom, so far beyond His age, and which so astonished those who heard Him, we do not know nor does the Gospel say.

“Seeing Him,” as Saint Luke says, “Joseph and Mary wondered,” and His Mother, approaching Him with maternal confidence and with gestures of inexplicable tenderness, mingled with such gentle reproof as such a Mother could use to such a Son, she said, “Son, why hast Thou done so to us? Behold Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing.” Simple words and maternal, and so touchingly tender, that we feel at once that they come straight from the heart.

I wish that mothers would never forget the example Mary here gives them. Your sons, I know, frequently give you pain; they are intractable, disobedient, and mischievous; but bear in mind that their shortcomings are oftener the result of thoughtlessness than of malice; they love you, though they afflict you, and therefore deal gently with them, overlook their faults, and by all means let them never hear angry and bitter, much less abusive and insulting words, coming from your lips – no, never. To use such language is to destroy your authority, to lessen their respect for you, and to provoke them to anger. A loving look, a silence that betokens neither anger nor spite, a sorrowful complaint, such as that of Mary, “Son, why hast Thou done so?” will prove to be the best way to correct them, and, I will add, to increase in them a sentiment of filial affection.

And how do mothers deal with their boys when they fail in their duty? They can answer that question better than I. Often they reprove them sharply for the most trifling faults; they scold them and abuse them and use unbecoming language, which they surely would not use did they realize its true meaning. They mistreat them, strike them, and severely chastise them, thus destroying their authority over their children, lessening their affection, and spoiling their character, making them reserved, untruthful, hypocrites, and resentful.

“Behold,” Mary says to Jesus, “Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing.” With a delicacy that can not be too much admired, Mary mentions Joseph before herself: “Behold, Thy father and I,” thus doing him honor in the presence of all. Wives and mothers, honor your husbands, to whom you should be subject everywhere and always, but particularly in the presence of your children; and never let a disrespectful word escape your lips, or do aught unbecoming before them. The husband and the father is the head of the family and to him all honor and respect are always due.

What answer did Jesus make to His Mother and to Joseph? “How is it that you sought me? Did ye not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” At first sight these words may seem harsh and irreverent, but such is surely not the fact, nor could it be. Jesus is in everything a most perfect model, and He was singularly so in the respect He paid to His Mother, of all creatures the most holy. Very frequently the meaning of words depends upon the way in which they are spoken, on the accent, the look, the gesture that accompanies them; so that words that might sound harsh and rude in themselves become, when so uttered, tokens of confidence and love. I believe that Jesus in uttering these words did so in a tone of voice and with a look of tender filial affection, which took from them all apparent harshness, and which made them express a certain surprise that they should have doubted of Him, or of His love, or of the necessity of His doing what He did in separating from them for three days, and thus causing them pain and sorrow. Jesus as man had duties toward Joseph and His Mother, but He had duties of another kind and of a higher order toward His heavenly Father. It is not necessary to note that when His heavenly Father entrusted to Jesus Christ a work for His service and His glory, He should forego everything else, even His duty to His Mother, to do it. His Father had bidden Him to do what necessarily implied a painful sacrifice to His Mother and to Joseph, and He could not and did not hesitate to do it. Possibly, too, God by that act wanted to make Mary feel that she must prepare herself for still greater sacrifices and for still longer absences from her Son during the days of His public life.

My friends, let us learn to put the will of God before what we most love, and, if necessary, to sacrifice to His will our dearest and holiest affections, even the love we bear our parents. When God speaks, His glory and our salvation equally demand that we obey, at the cost of every other love or interest. Mary said: “Thy father and I sought Thee sorrowing,” and Jesus replied: “Did ye not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” Evidently Jesus wished to make it clear that Joseph was not His true father, that He had another, and who? Assuredly God. Jesus affirms throughout the Gospels, everywhere and at all times, that God is His Father; that He is doing His Father’s will; that He works together with His Father; that the doctrine He teaches He receives from His Father; in a word, He affirms and reiterates His own divine origin.

Joseph and Mary were silent, but the Evangelist makes this observation: “And they understood not the word that He spoke unto them.” It is not surprising that Joseph and Mary did not understand the meaning of the words of Jesus. They knew that Jesus was the Son of God and that He was come to save mankind; they also knew that He would set up a kingdom, the kingdom of God, for Mary had learned this from the angel; but they did not know how this kingdom was to he founded, that it was to be founded later on by preaching and that of this preaching the sojourn of Jesus in the Temple was the first essay.

“And He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them.” In these few words Saint Luke condenses the eighteen years that Jesus lived in Nazareth from the day on which they were uttered until that on which He entered upon His public life. Truly this is a mystery of divine wisdom. What did Jesus do from His twelfth to His thirtieth year? Modern criticism has made and is still making great efforts to penetrate into the mysterious obscurity of these eighteen years and to find the secret of how this Man, so extraordinary and unaccountable to them, was formed. They claim to know that He traveled and that He studied in I know not what schools. But these are all dreams and futile attempts to explain humanly what can never be humanly explained. Where is the good of forming wild theories about journeyings, and studies, and the schools frequented by Jesus from His twelfth to His thirtieth year? The Gospel says with admirable simplicity: “Jesus went down to Nazareth and was subject to Joseph and Mary.” He spent His days in a small shop, like any other ordinary workman; He, God, the Saviour of the world, lived by toiling at a lowly trade, joyously, constantly, and in all things obeying two of His creatures. Here the human mind is confused and baffled, and it is better silently to adore this mystery of divine wisdom and love, than to lessen it by discoursing upon it.

“And His Mother kept all these words in her heart.” And this, my friends, is a most useful lesson. Mary listened to the words of Jesus, she noted all His works, she meditated upon them, she tried to fathom their meaning and turn it to spiritual account. And this is what we should do; we should store our minds with the teaching of Jesus Christ as found in the Gospels, in His words and works, and strive to make our lives a copy of His.

- Bishop Geremia Bonomelli, D.D., Diocese of Cremona, Italy