The feast of the Holy Family

Today is the last Sunday Gospel article that we shall be doing for the Year 2006 as it is also the last day of the year. So first allow me to greet all my faithful readers a very Happy New Year and I pray that everyone who reads our Sunday articles will learn a lot from what the Holy Spirit has imparted to me so that the others would be enlightened through these articles. Next Sunday is also the 3rd year that we've been writing our Sunday articles solely about the Sunday Gospel.

Today's Gospel reading maybe the last for the year, but it is perhaps the most important passage for Catholics to learn as today is also the Feast of the Holy Family. In this day and age of modernism and relativism, the Holy Family is under threat. Many families today exist without a father or a mother because many of these people have separated, split up or divorced. Perhaps these couples shouldn't have gotten married in the first place or were not prepared for marriage and did not give any serious thought as to the sanctity of marriage. But we are not here to condemn our separated brethren, but to make them aware that the family is still the most important unit in a civilized society. Without the family, society itself would crumble.

What is even worse is that, many people especially the women in today's world are awestruck by famous movie stars and always keep tabs on their movie idols... more so when they get married, then not surprisingly, a few years later come up with a very public and often a very nasty divorce as if their real lives were just another movie they are making. That certain famous Catholics get a Church-approved "annulment" and then they end up remarrying another person is even a greater puzzlement to us. Annulment, separation or divorce? To many Catholics, it's the same, after all, we believe in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ when he said, "What God has put together, let no man put asunder." These are just one of the many problems that threaten today's fragile family unit. So let's read today's Gospel which you can only find in Luke 2:41-52.

"Each year [Jesus'] parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover, 42 and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. 43 After they had completed its day, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. 44 Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, 45 but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.

46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, 47 and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. 48 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." 49 And he said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?

50 But they did not understand what he said to them. 51 He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus advanced (in) wisdom and age and favor before God and man."

Let's take a hard look at the situation of St. Joseph and Mama Mary was in. Jesus was lost for a total of three days. They first noticed that he was missing a day after the caravan had left Jerusalem. That meant another day's journey to return back to Jerusalem, plus another day of looking for him in that big city. To get an idea of how the parents of Jesus got so worried, why don't you ask yourself if you lost your child in the shopping mall and looked for him for three whole days? I'm sure you'd be worried stiff!

It must have been a great relief to find the boy Jesus in the temple and his parents must have been amazed when he said, "Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" Of course, this was not a slap to the face of St. Joseph who knew that he was not the real father of the boy Jesus. Perhaps it was even a confirmation after those long and arduous twelve years taking his family from Nazareth to Bethlehem and all the way to Egypt and back... that he was the foster father of the Son of God.

That Jesus was gone for three days and was found has similarities to his death and resurrection. But that incident is still 21 years too far. What we learned today is that the Holy Family cared for each other and that Jesus was a very obedient child to his parents. Let's hope that you too shall keep your own families as holy as can be... by praying together as a family.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit's columns can also be accessed at www.shootinginsidecebu.blogspot.com