Homily for the Feast of the Holy Family, Year C
When his parents saw him,
they were astonished,
and his mother said to him,
“Son, why have you done this to us?
Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”
And he said to them,
“Why were you looking for me?
Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
But they did not understand what he said to them.
He went down with them and came to Nazareth,
and was obedient to them;
and his mother kept all these things in her heart.
And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor
before God and man.— Luke 2:48-52
Catholic theology and Mariology has understood for many centuries that Our Lady was gifted with great graces of knowledge and wisdom and understanding from the moment of her conception. In fact, St. Thomas teaches that her initial holiness already surpassed the final holiness of all the saints and angels taken together. This holiness clearly included her understanding, as she was free from the interference of unruly passions that cloud the judgment of passionate men—even of theologians and prelates of the Church!
So today’s Gospel lesson could well trouble the impression of her we have culled from the Catholic tradition. What gives? Our Lady seems to unbraid her Son, and he in turn corrects her.
Well, to understand what is actually going on here, we need to set aside the minimalistic interpretations of some commentators—even putatively orthodox ones—and peer a little more deeply into the mystery revealed today.
You see, Our Lord in this scene is providing us with an example, a kind of real, historical parable. Mary is the holiest person in the universe, after her Son and his Father and their Holy Spirit. We might then well imagine that, as a poor, weak human being, she might not have comprehended all their infinitely wise and deep designs, and would have needed further enlightenment.
And indeed she did. Throughout the Gospels, Our Lord treats his mother very austerely. This is not because he is badly disposed toward her, or because she had done anything worthy of his displeasure, but because he expects her to be his companion and in a sense co-equal in the work of salvation. So he does not console her, but rather challenges her to rise to a higher perception of faith in the power and role of his incarnation, which he began in her spotless womb.
No matter how holy a mere human person is, there is always some progress to be made on the way to heaven. This was true of Our Lady and St. Joseph and St. John the Baptist, even given the immense holiness they would have possessed from the beginning of their lives.
This teaches us, then, that we must never be discouraged if the ways of the Lord in our own lives seem obscure and difficult to understand. He has the matter in hand and is surely just calling us to a closer following of him in view of our final perseverance and victory in him. Things that seem to us galling or painful are in fact ways in which the admirable providence of God is drawing us to a closer following of him and deeper union with him in love.
Christ desires true friends, not just admirers or dependents. He wants us to accompany him and join him in the work of the salvation of the human race. The great saints understood this, and so they did not hesitate (at least not ultimately!) to accept all that he has in mind for us to undergo and to suffer for the salvation of the world.
As a priest I have seen many married couples who began their married life with tremendous consolations, but who had to learn subsequently that the Lord had also prepared for them struggles and battles so that they could participate in the Church’s work. They found out that it is not just virgins and cloistered nuns and priests who deny themselves, but everyone who is committed in love to others.
So let us meditate on this fifth joyful mystery of the Finding in the Temple with the expectation that the Savior will grant us the special sweetness of a closer union with him in his saving work.