Wist Ye Not?

This week opens with the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  It closes next Saturday with the first day of the Chair of Unity Octave, when we begin our prayers for the unity of Christ’s extended family, his Mystical Body, his Church.  Next week we can focus more on this larger family of our Saviour, but this week our attention is drawn to his immediate family, that which consists of himself, his Mother Mary, and his foster father St. Joseph.

Very little is known about their family life.  We know that St. Joseph was already close to the Virgin Mary at the time of her Annunciation, and that despite his undoubted dismay to find that she was expecting a child, set aside his own sentiments and followed the message given to him by an angel as he slept.  From that time forth, he made it his singular role in life to be the protector and provider of his spouse and her Son Jesus.  Thus, when it came time for him to go to Bethlehem for the census, he did not abandon Mary who was in her ninth month of expectation, but took her with him on the long and arduous journey.  In spite of great difficulty, he found shelter for her as she delivered her newborn Son to the world.  Very soon afterwards he found himself obeying another angel who again warned him in a dream, this time that he must escape the coming massacre of the Holy Innocents in Bethlehem and flee with his family to Egypt.

Eventually, yet another angel would advise him it was safe to return to Nazareth, and, after all their hardships, it was to this town in which Mary had conceived her Son that they lived from then on, in the perfect harmony of a family that was indeed a holy family.  We know almost nothing of our Lord’s childhood and adolescence, and until his Baptism at the age of thirty, only one event is mentioned in Holy Scripture to give us an idea of the relationship between these three members of the Holy Family.

It is an event that, although described in detail in the Gospel of St. Luke, remains mysterious to say the least.  At face value, we have a hard time accepting the wisdom and judgment of this twelve-year-old boy, who remained behind in Jerusalem and deliberately put his parents through the anguish of a three-day search, not knowing if they had failed in their great task of protecting the most important Child in history.  This event begins by being one of the seven great Sorrows of our blessed Lady, and then ends up as one of the five Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary.  Truly a mystery, and one which even Jesus’ own blessed Mother needed help in understanding: “Son,” she asks, “why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.”

It’s true that if any regular mortal child did anything like this to his parents, he would have been justly punished.  It would be assumed that his actions were thoughtless and selfish, uncaring and unsympathetic towards the feelings of his mother and father.  And any normal mother and father would have felt the need, quite rightly, in chastising their son with strong words and a punishment proportionate to his misconduct, at least in order to assure he didn’t do it again.  But Mary and Joseph did not punish Jesus.  Joseph doesn’t even say a word, even though it would normally be the father who would be the first to reprimand his son, particularly for the ill-treatment he seemed to be showing to his mother, Joseph’s spouse.  But it is the spouse herself, Mary, who speaks to Jesus.  She does not rise above her station by reprimanding the Son of God.  She merely asks him a question: “Why?”  It was an emotional moment, her perplexity mixed with the relief she felt at finding him again.  What could possibly be his excuse for this?  He is the Son of God, incapable of being ‘naughty.’  And yet, she could not imagine any possible reason for his behavior.  But with all that said, she knew who he was and did not forget her place.  She was his Mother, the guide and protector to her Child.  But she was not his Superior and she knew it.  So her question, while sincere, was gentle and with the hope of receiving an answer she could understand.  We observe her humility and we admire her.  But there is more to come.

For her Son did indeed answer her question.  He answered it with two other questions, neither of which Mary and Joseph understood.  The first question was “How is it that ye sought me?”  With the benefit of hindsight, can we understand today what Mary and Joseph did not understand then?  Can we deduce from his question that it was pointless for them to have searched high and low for him when he was in fact not lost at all?  He knew exactly where he was, namely, in his Father’s house, the holy Temple of Jerusalem, his true home.  He was God, and did not belong in a stable or a humble house in Nazareth, but in God’s house, and here in the Temple, the Child Jesus was in the place closest to his Father in heaven.  So why did they look for him for three days, everywhere but this holy Temple where it was obvious he should find his resting place.  “Thou dwellest in the holy place, O thou Worship of Israel.” (Ps. 21 : 3)

The second question reinforces the Child’s gentle instruction of his parents.  Here now was his deeper message to them, one that he conveys not with condescension, not by preaching, but by the humble asking of a question: “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”  Our Lady might not have grasped the full meaning of this question right away, but we can be sure that she came to understand it later for she “kept all  these sayings in her heart.” By the time she passed them on years later to the Gospel writer St. Luke, she had meditated long and hard on what her Son had said to her.  The twelve-year-old boy was old enough now to show his parents what his true role must be, not that of a carpenter’s son, but that of the Son of God.  He was born to do the business of his Father in heaven, and that business was to involve teaching the truths of God to the chosen people of God.  The revelation of these great truths, many of them hidden to the world before he came, would eventually resonate even beyond the world of Jewry, and all mankind would be redeemed by his death on the cross.  But it was fitting that he should begin with his chosen people, and where better to start his teaching than in the Holy Temple of Sion?  Here, they found him, “sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions”—not the normal superficial questions of a twelve-year-old, but questions so profound and penetrating that “all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.”  The seed was sown, in the right place (the Temple) and at the right time (his coming-of-age at 12 years old).  And his parents needed to be taught too, with the great truth that he was indeed the Son of God, whose business he must now be about.

Having done his duty to his Father in heaven, the young Boy was now reunited with Mary and Joseph, returning with them to Nazareth, where the Gospel tells us that he “was subject unto them.” For another eighteen years the Son of God humbly fulfilled his role as a child faithful in every way to his parents, maturing through adolescence into adulthood, and showing children everywhere what their own role must be as they traverse the same path, growing in wisdom and stature”, subject to their parents as they live under their roof, “in favour with God and man.”  In one way or another, we must all follow his example for we are all children of God.  And that means we must all must be about our Father’s business.