The Lord be with you.
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you,
O Lord.
Every year the parents of Jesus used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover.
When he was twelve years old,
They went up for the feast as usual.
When they were on their way home after the feast,
The boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem without his parents knowing it.
They assumed he was with the caravan,
And it was only after a day's journey that they went to look for him among their relations and acquaintances.
When they failed to find him,
They went back to Jerusalem,
Looking for him everywhere.
Three days later,
They found him in the temple,
Sitting among the doctors,
Listening to them and asking them questions.
And all those who heard him were astounded at his intelligence and his replies.
They were overcome when they saw him,
And his mother said to him,
My child,
Why have you done this to us?
See how worried your father and I have been looking for you.
Why were you looking for me?
He replied,
Did you not know that I must be busy with my father's affairs?
But they did not understand what he meant.
He then went down with them and came to Nazareth and lived under their authority.
His mother stored up all these things in her heart,
And Jesus increased in wisdom,
In stature,
And in favor with God and men.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Can you imagine losing your child and only realizing that your child is gone a day after leaving wherever you've been visiting?
I think in today's culture,
That is unthinkable.
It is fascinating to see how we have changed,
How we have lost trust.
Because we see here that Joseph and Mary didn't think much about the fact that their son wasn't with them.
They trusted their community.
They knew somehow that he would be playing with his cousins or be looked after in the caravan.
And so we then find that only a day after leaving,
They start looking for him.
Can you imagine St.
Joseph's thoughts?
Oh my,
I lost the Son of God.
Can you imagine what our holy mother had to go through?
I had to be this child of God,
The Son of God,
Just to lose him.
Won't the wrath of God come down upon us,
Upon Joseph and myself?
I think they were somehow more frantic than other parents might have been.
And only after three days,
They find their son discussing God with those who make it their life study to try and understand God,
To know God.
And those people around Christ were impressed.
Can you imagine the elation that our holy mother and St.
Joseph felt when they saw Jesus there?
And I wonder,
We read that she almost scolded Jesus.
Can you think,
Can you imagine how much you made us worry?
It almost sounds like Jesus was a typical teenager.
And when you start thinking about the repercussions of his actions,
Jesus replies to her,
Why are you worried?
Don't you know that this is my place?
It is a thing that I think we can all,
Or many of us can relate to.
Being children and sometimes being a bit wayward and not thinking about the repercussions of our actions.
When we go out and we enjoy things and we enjoy life and we stop thinking about how it might impact other people.
And not out of spite and not out of malice.
No,
Not at all.
Just because we live so much in that moment that everything else disappears.
And then we can also relate to the worried parents.
Not knowing where this person,
This soul of immense value might be.
And I think in our lives these days,
We tend to sometimes oscillate between these two states.
Between worry and anxiety.
And in this total surrender,
This total being in the moment.
And that is part of our human experience.
That is part of life.
Sometimes.
We can feel the anxiety build up in us.
And it is natural.
It is the way that we survive as human beings on this beautiful planet that we call Earth.
When the adrenals pump out adrenaline so that we can survive,
So that we can go into a state of fight or flight.
So that we can protect that and those that we love.
I think though that as a society and as a whole,
Something happened.
And we have gotten stuck in that anxiety.
We've gotten stuck in worry.
And we don't go back into that balance of moments of absolute surrender.
Of being in that absolute moment.
We have glimpses of it.
When we meditate,
When we pray,
When we enjoy something so much that maybe just for a split second.
Everything else disappears.
And we go back into that childlike state of Jesus in the temple.
Not thinking,
Not worrying.
I want to go back to the effect that this constant anxiety is having on us as a society.
How many of you who are blessed with children will only after a day of not seeing your child,
Of not knowing where your child is.
How many of you would only then start looking?
I can already almost feel the anxiety building in many of the people listening to this.
Because we have become so scared of each other that we don't have the trust that we see Saint Joseph and our Holy Mother have or had in their community.
And I'm not saying that you should let your children run wild and not think about them,
Not worry about them.
But just see.
See what we are doing to each other.
And today we celebrate the Holy Family.
And I want to ask that as we go into the next couple of days,
As we go into this week,
Let us just think about this.
That even in our anxiety,
God offers peace.
And it is not always easy to find that peace.
But it is there.
When we go and we forget for a moment about everything.
We go and we become silent and we enter the inner temple that we are.
And when we do so,
And if we quiet down all these racing thoughts,
All these anxieties and fears that we have.
We can enter a state of total silence.
And in that silence,
We will hear and we will experience God.
Amen.
