St. Patrickís parish is in
Kowloon, Hong Kong.Ý There are four
weekend Masses including a childrenís Mass at 10:45, Sunday.Ý This is the parish where I was formerly
pastor. [email protected].Ý Cf. also Social Concerns Education: www.acpp.org --ÝÝ Fr. Gene Thalman M.M.]
THE PEOPLE GARDEN
ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ Next Saturday, we will be
celebrating the wedding of the daughter of one of my old Hong Kong
friends.Ý What do you think Antheaís
parents will be thinking about on her wedding day?
I suspect that these parents feel a sense of
surprise.Ý It must seem to them like
yesterday that Anthea had been a newborn baby.Ý
As a baby Anthea didnít know anything other than to coo and soil
nappies. Yet gradually in the course of the past twenty-some years Anthea
matured from an incompetent baby into an adult woman.
And I suspect that the parents of Anthea are
just a little sad to say good-by to that little girl-- that Anthea once was.
And enter into a new type of adult and loving relationship with their daughter.
Ý
Those of you who are parents with grown children are able to appreciate
todayís scripture passage much better than I can.
GODíS WORD:Ý ìJesus,
for his part progressed steadily in wisdom and grace before God and men.îÝ Luke 2: 52.Ý [NAB]
Each year Mary, Joseph and Jesus, went to
Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of the Passover:Ý the feast of liberation from slavery and oppression.Ý But this year is different.Ý Jesus is twelve.Ý
In Jesusí day and continuing in our present
day, it is the Jewish custom to celebrate Bar Mitzvah.Ý When a male child reaches his twelfth year,
he is officially considered an adult.
Now we can understand todayís scandalous
gospel passage. A misunderstanding in the Holy Family!
Ý
After the religious celebrations, the women
and children would set out for the return trip a few hours before the men.Ý The women wanted to talk so that the men
couldnít hear.Ý The men folk not
burdened with babies and little kids, could make better time and would easily
overtake the womenís group by nightfall.
Mary set out with the other ladies.Ý She assumed that Jesus would be following in
the menís group. ÝLater Joseph departed
Jerusalem with the men.Ý The men folk
liked to talk to other men folk so that the women couldnít hear. Joseph still
thought of Jesus as a kid and had gone on ahead with the women and children.
When the two groups arrived at the first stop
for the night, Mary saw Joseph: ìSay, Joseph, where is Jesus?îÝ Well Joseph answered: ìI thought he was with
you?îÝ And Mary answered: ìI thought he
was with you!îÝ They searched among the
pilgrims. No little twelve-year-old boy. Frantically, they rushed back to
Jerusalem.Ý Only parents can guess the
horrible thoughts that must have been going through their minds: an accident,
kidnapped, appendicitis.
After three days of searching, Mary and
Joseph decided to go to the temple to ask Godís help.Ý And there was Jesus talking with the scholars in the temple!Ý And Jesus said: ìHi, mom!Ý Hi, dad!îÝ
And Mary said: ìWe have been going crazy looking for you for three days
and all you can say is: ìHi, mom.îÝ And
Jesus said: ìI am an adult now.Ý I can
take care of myself. Stop treating me like a child. ìI must be about Godís my
fatherís business.Ý I had some important
work to do here.î
It must have been a quiet trip back to
Nazareth. Jesus must have realized that he should have been more considerate
and have informed his parents.Ý This
incident must be consoling to both Hong Kong parents and their teenage
children.Ý
Mary, the parent, realized that she herself
still had a lot of adjusting to do now that Jesus had become more than her
sweet little boy.Ý Her relationship to
her son, Jesus, was changing.ÝÝ Mary did
a lot of thinking about that incident in which Jesus was missing for three
days. And todayís passage ends with: ìHis mother meanwhile kept all these
things in memory.îÝ She knew that she
had to do a lot of thinking about what had just occurred.
On the other hand, it is consoling to young
people to know that Jesus as a boy of twelve didnít have the maturity,
sensitivity and couth of a thirty-year old. He still had a lot of growing up to
do. He had to proceed into full adulthood step by step much as any other twelve
year old.Ý And there would be
mistakes.Ý He, too, had to learn by
trial and error to enter into a new and deeper relationship with his
parents.Ý
ìÖJesus, for his part progressed steadily in wisdom and age and grace
before God and men.î [NAB]
LESSONÝ I like to think of the family as a
garden.Ý Theyíre all types of
gardens.Ý Some are vegetable
gardens.Ý Others are flower gardens.Ý Each gardener chooses the type of plants
that she wishes to grow.Ý If she is a
good gardener she will be sure to give the plants sufficient water, ruthlessly
pull out the weeds, prune as required, protect the precious plants from
excessive sun and rain.
The family too is a garden:Ý a people garden.Ý It is the place where not only children grow to maturity and
beauty.Ý It is also the garden in which
the parents and grandparents continue to grow to greater maturity and
wisdom.Ý Above all, the family is the
place in which the relationship among the family members continually changes
and hopefully matures.Ý Like Mary in
todayís gospel,
ìHis mother meanwhile kept
all these things in memory.î
This morning like Mary we think about how
each person continues to grow in our family garden and our responsibility as
gardeners too one another.
FINALE We will close with a
quote from the great letter of John Paul II entitled On The Family I
hope every member of a family will read two or three lines each day before
meals.Ý The encyclical also has a
special section for ìThose without a familyî [Cf.: #85] If you canít read, so
much the better! Threaten one of your avaricious grandchildren with
disinheritance if he doesnít read a paragraph for grandma each evening from
this inspiring encyclical.Ý That way
both of you will profit from the reading.
ÝÝÝÝÝ ìFamily prayer has for its very own object family life itselfÖ
[Its] Joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments, births and birthday
celebrations, wedding anniversaries of the parents, departures, separation and
homecomings, important and far-reaching decisions, the death of those who are
dear, etc.óall of these mark Godís loving intervention in the familyí
history.Ý They should be seen as
suitable moments for thanksgiving, for petition, for trusting abandonment of
the family into the hands of their common Father in heaven.îÝ Pope John Paul II, On the Family,
(Washington, D.C., United States Catholic Conference, 1981, #59, p. 55.
25 December 2003 Feast of Holy Family (C) Luke 2:41-52
TWO WORDS: The
people gardenÝÝ
THEME:Ý The family is the ìpeople
gardenî in which we constantly grow to become the most beautiful person we can
be.
TEXT:Ý ìJesus, for his part progressed steadily in
wisdom and grace before God and men.î ÝLuke 2: 52.Ý [New
American Bible=NAB as well as all biblical quotes used in this homily.]]
RESPONSE:Ý Read with your family the
Pope Paulís Apostolic Exhortation On the Family.
CHURCHíS POINT OF VIEW
ÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝÝ ìFamily prayer has for its very own object family life
itself, which in all its varying circumstances is seen as a call from God and
lived as a filial response to his call.Ý
Joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments, births and birthday
celebrations, wedding anniversaries of the parents, departures, separation and
homecomings, important and far-reaching decisions, the death of those who are
dear, etc.óall of these mark Godís loving intervention in the familyí
history.Ý They should be seen as
suitable moments for thanksgiving, for petition, for trusting abandonment of
the family into the hands of their common Father in heaven.Ý The dignity and responsibility of the
Christian family as the domestic church can be achieved only with Godís
unceasing aid, which will surely be granted if it is humble and trustingly
petitioned in prayer.îÝ Pope John Paul
II, On the Family, (Washington, D.C.,
United States Catholic Conference, 1981, #59, p. 55.
REFERENCES:
ìA Hebrew boy becomes a
man at twelve and is inducted into the covenant with other males in a ceremony
now known as a Bar Mitzvah, which means ëson of the commandment.íîÝÝ Sammuel Oyin Abogunrin, in
The International Bible Commentary,
ed. by William R. Farmer (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1998), p.
December 29, 2003Ý Feast of Holy Family (C) Luke 2:41-52
NAME_________
Grade_____________
1. What Jewish religious ceremony is celebrated when
a lad reaches the age of twelve?ÝÝ
ÝÝÝ
B_________Ý M___________
2.Ý ____T/F
At the age of twelve Jesus had reached full maturity.
3.Ý What do
you think of the behavior of Mary when Jesus was lost?
ÝÝÝÝÝ
___________________________________________________
4.ÝÝ What do
you think of the behavior of Jesus when he stayed behind in Jerusalem?Ý _____________________________________________
5. (Optional) Tell about a time when you realized
that you had reached a new
ÝÝÝÝ level of
maturity.Ý What religious significance
did this insight have for you?