LET THE PEACE OF CHRIST CONTROL YOUR HEARTS
My son is the same age (12) as Jesus was in today’s Gospel - when Jesus was left at the Temple during Passover. In the reading, Mary, Joseph, and their caravan of relatives and acquaintances travel a day until they realized that Jesus wasn’t with them. Likely it took another day to travel back. They found him after 3 more days, in the Temple, and they likely, weren’t happy/satisfied with Jesus’ response, when they finally reunited with him - “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house?” I know how I’d respond verbally and non-verbally if my own son asked ‘why I was looking for him’ after 5 days of being ‘lost.’
In prayerful meditation, placing my wife and myself in the place of Mary and Joseph, I could only imagine what those heated conversations and flat-out arguments would have potentially looked like if we had accidentally forgot about and were separated from our son for 5 days. That’s a lotta time to argue! And often times, reconciliation of the ‘hurt’ takes longer to mend than the duration of the argument, itself. In those 5 days of likely panic/urgency, what did the discussions involve between Mary and Joseph? What did the intonation in their voice sound like? Did they point fingers at each other? Did they reconcile soon after? What did reconciliation between them look like? Were they relieved? Pissed off? Embarrassed (that they lost Jesus) as parents? Were they ashamed that their relatives and friends knew? Were they eventually able to better “understand” what Jesus said to them upon finding him after 5 days? How did this understanding deepen their relationship as a married couple?
On the flip side, I imagine, what could a ‘healthy’ conversation between a husband and wife who lost their 12-year-old son, or loved one, look like. In a seemingly catastrophic moment like this, could there potentially be room for “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience’ as stated in today’s second reading?
Often, when our kids are growing up, little do they (nor we) know, they’re watching us, as parents, grow up, too. The way we argue, the way we love - all are embedded into their developing brains - contributing towards the formation of how they think about and perceive the world. As we render our hearts for Jesus’ birth this Christmas season, may we be invited, to assume a position of receptivity - to “let the Peace of Christ, control (our) hearts. Let the Word of Christ dwell in (us) richly” - whatever that may look like, in the complexities of these 15 earthly minutes of our eternal lives, with the one who calls us, Beloved.
How may I initiate and sustain, my position of receptivity - in heart, mind, and my words - to render them in preparation for the one that calls, me, Beloved?
Randy Naku