Gospel of Luke, chapter 2:52

The greatest problem with relationships today is that people don’t have time for each other. They are too busy with many things: making a living; pursuing a career; keeping up the Joneses’. Children often feel abandoned even in their own homes, for they don’t see or talk to their parents that much. They are all too busy.

The Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, shows us Jesus at the age of twelve. That was the age when every Jewish boy was expected to make his bar mitzvah and so become a responsible subject of the law. This was a ceremony of legal adulthood. From then on, the young man was required to keep the law and make the annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem like any other Jewish male. Jesus was no exception. To celebrate his coming of age He attended classes in the temple without informing his parents. When His parents caught up with Him after two days of searching for Him, all He said to them was, “why were you searching for me? Did you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). Even devout families, it is clear, have occasional tensions and misunderstandings.

The intriguing part of Luke’s story is how it ends: “He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.” Jesus already knew that his mission was to be in His Father’s house, doing His Father’s business. It was clear from the day His parents found Him in the temple that He was capable of doing His Father’s will very well, because “all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers.” If Jesus, at the age of twelve, was ready to begin His public ministry why would He go down with His parents and spend the next eighteen years in the obscurity of a carpenter’s shed? Were those eighteen years wasted years? Certainly not! Jesus’ hidden life in Nazareth was as much a part of His ministry as His public life. The gospel reminds us that “Jesus grew in body and in wisdom, gaining favor with God and men.” When we reflect on the fact that for every year of His public life Jesus spent ten years in family life, we should understand the priority He gave to family life.

Everybody has two lives to live: a private life and a public life. These two lives should be lived in harmony and not in opposition to each other. Today’s scripture reminds us of the importance of investing quality time in our private lives with our families and friends, even should our public lives be as important as saving the world.

Fr. Hugh Duffy

* * * DO NOT MISS TOMORROW’S BLOG * * *