Reflection -- Feast of the Holy Family -- modified

In the readings from Mass today, the Gospel reading is "the Finding in the Temple," the fifth Joyful Mystery of the rosary.


The Gospel includes:

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.

Mary and Joseph searched for Jesus.  We can hear in this a passage from the Song of Songs:

On my bed at night I sought him* whom my soul loves — I sought him but I did not find him.
“Let me rise then and go about the city,* through the streets and squares;  Let me seek him whom my soul loves.”  I sought him but I did not find him.

It is as though you can hear of Joseph and Mary as they "go about the city," and "through the streets" seeking Jesus who is "him whom my soul loves."

We hear a similar theme again on the morning of that 1st Easter in the Gospel of St John :

But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping.  And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb 
and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been. 
And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” 
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus.

In both New Testament passages, they are seeking the Lord, the one whom they love.

Jesus asks his mother:

Why were you looking for me?

They searched because he is the one that they love.  And suddenly they came upon him.


As we read in Song of Songs:

Hardly had I left them when I found him whom my soul loves.*  I held him and would not let him go until I had brought him to my mother’s house, to the chamber of her who conceived me.

Then in John we read:

Jesus said to her (Mary Magdalene), “Stop holding on to me,* for I have not yet ascended to the Father.  But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

And we can see Mary Magdalene just as she turns she suddenly sees Jesus, not knowing it is he, and that "she held him and would not let him go."  So, Jesus tells her "Stop holding on to me."  And it is evident that this was done to fulfill what was written in the scriptures.

Each of us must seek the one whom we love.  God has made us for himself, and our hearts are ever restless, until they rest in God, as St Augustine has said.

Yet, without the Son coming into the world, none of us could ever find that one whom we love, nor could we find rest.

But Jesus says:  Come to me all you who are weary, and I will give you rest.