FIRST READING 1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28
In those days Hannah conceived, and at the end of her term bore a son whom she called Samuel, since she had asked the Lord for him. The next time her husband Elkanah was going up with the rest of his household to offer the customary sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vows, Hannah did not go, explaining to her husband, “Once the child is weaned, I will take him to appear before the Lord and to remain there forever; I will offer him as a perpetual nazirite.” Once Samuel was weaned, Hannah brought him up with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine, and presented him at the temple of the Lord in Shiloh. After the boy’s father had sacrificed the young bull, Hannah, his mother, approached Eli and said: “Pardon, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood near you here, praying to the Lord. I prayed for this child, and the Lord granted my request. Now I, in turn, give him to the Lord; as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the Lord.” Hannah left Samuel there.
SECOND READING 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24
Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. And so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in God and receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us. Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us.
GOSPEL Luke 2:41-52
Each year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. 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.
My sisters and brothers in Christ,
Jesus, Mary and Joseph. This is the Holy Family. It is an unusual group and has even more unusual relationships within the family. Over the centuries we have come to recognize that all families are unique, even when they share much in common. This family group—Jesus, May and Joseph—is really unusual and yet completely normal. We hear practically nothing about this normal family until Jesus begins His public ministry.
The First Book of Samuel, from which our first reading today is taken, gives us another most unusual family, that of Samuel. How can we imagine a mother, who has longed for a child all her life, then giving that child away to the service of the temple? Incredible! These are stories of faith. We don’t always like them but they are given to us to show how faith can impact our life. A true family, in the Scriptural sense, keeps working at living from faith and building the family relationships in faith.
The second reading is from the 1st Letter of Saint John, and speaks about how we are all children of God. This can remind us of that Gospel passage where Jesus tells us that his mother and brothers are those who hear the Word of God and put it into practice. In this sense we are all part of the Holy Family because we are brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers of the Lord Jesus. It can humble us to think this way, but we can recognize there are no perfect families. What moves us toward a perfect family is listening to the Word and striving to live it in our lives with faith and love.
Luke’s Gospel today is the account of Jesus staying in Jerusalem and teaching in the temple when he was twelve years old! We can imagine the anxiety of his parents when they discover he is not with them. Yet Jesus does not apologize. Instead he states a simple truth: I must be about my Father’s business.
For all of us this day, the deepest and most loving way of celebrating the Holy Family is to live as Jesus did: doing the will of the Father with love. Let us become truly the Holy Family of Jesus here on earth.
Your brother in the Lord,
Abbot Philip