515. Seventh Sunday of St Joseph

Meditations no. 446 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The sorrow of Mary and Joseph at the loss of Jesus in Jerusalem.

Today is the last Sunday before the feast of St Joseph. For seven weeks we have been considering scenes from the life of our Father and Lord, seeking his protection and help in our interior life and apostolate. We pause now to consider one more event of his life as narrated by St Luke.

The evangelist tells us that Mary and Joseph used to go to Jerusalem each year for Passover. When Jesus was twelve, the age at which every Israelite was obliged by the Law to make that visit, the Child went up with them to the Holy City. After going up to Jerusalem, as the custom was at the time of the feast, and completing the days of its observance, they set about their return home. But the boy Jesus, unknown to his parents, continued his stay in Jerusalem. And they, thinking that he was among their travelling companions, had gone a whole day’s journey before they made enquiry for him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances. When they could not find him, they made their way back to Jerusalem in search of him.

Where is Jesus? The Child, my Lady!, where is he?

Mary is crying. In vain you and I have run from group to group, from caravan to caravan: no one has seen him. Joseph, after fruitless attempts to keep from crying, cries too… And you… And I.

Being a common little fellow, I cry my eyes out and wail to heaven and earth… , to make up for the times when I lost him through my own fault and did not cry.

Jesus: may I never lose you again… Now you and I are united in misfortune and grief, as we were united in sin. And from the depths of our being come sighs of heartfelt sorrow and burning phrases which the pen cannot and should not record.

St Luke tells us that it was only after three days that they found him. He was sitting in the temple, in the midst of those who taught there, listening to them and asking them questions; and all those who heard him were in amazement at his quick understanding and at the answers he gave. An early ecclesiastical writer comments: Learn where those who seek him find him, so that you too, seeking him along with Joseph and Mary, will be able to find him… Seek Jesus yourself and… you will find him.

When they found Jesus, Joseph and Mary were full of wonder, and his mother said to him, My Son, why hast thou treated us so? Think, what anguish of mind thy father and I have endured, searching for thee. But he asked them, How is it that you sought me? Didn’t you know that I must be about my Father’s business? Mingled with the joy of finding him is the sorrow of this seemingly harsh answer of Christ to his parents, which was beyond their understanding. In an illuminating teaching on this passage, our Father comments that once we are consoled by the joy of finding Jesus - three days he was gone! - debating with the teachers of Israel (Luke 2: 46), you and I shall be left deeply impressed by the duty to leave our home and family to serve our heavenly Father.

Humility is necessary in order to seek and find our Lord.

Christ was a boy of twelve when he remained behind in the Temple. How his Mother and St Joseph must have suffered when, on their way back from Jerusalem, they could not find him among their relatives and friends. And then what joy when they recognise him from afar, as he instructs the teachers of Israel. But notice the words that issue from his lips. Don’t they seem hard? The Son says in reply to his Mother, How is it that you sought me? (Luke 2: 49). Surely they were right to have looked for him? Souls who know what it is to lose Jesus Christ and to find him again, are able to understand this… How is it that you sought me? Didn’t you know that I must be about my Father’s business? (Ibid. )Didn’t you know that I must devote my time entirely to my heavenly Father?

Mary and Joseph’s search for the Child, their finding of him and their loving care for him in the following years sum up well the steps of the spiritual life which our Father proposes: May you seek Christ: may you find Christ: may you love Christ. In this process, which is repeated in our own life, it is essential to live the first stage: to make the effort to seek Jesus time and again, without growing tired. Only in this way will we find him at all times along our way, and will our intimacy with him grow.

I have distinguished as it were four stages in our effort to identify ourselves with Christ, our Father said on another occasion: seeking him, finding him, getting to know him, loving him. It may seem clear to you that you are only at the first stage. Seek him then, hungrily; seek him within yourselves with all your strength. If you act with determination, I am ready to guarantee that you have already found him, and have begun to get to know him and to love him, and to hold your conversation in heaven.

In order to seek our Lord and to find him we must be humble. We should ask our Lady insistently to obtain for us an ever deeper humility, which will enable us to seek and to find and to love Christ. In this way, when we take the Child in our arms and press him to us after each encounter, we will make a more determined resolution never to leave him again.

Dealing with St Joseph so that he will teach us to love Christ.

We must seek Christ in our youth, in our maturity and in our old age: throughout our life. Whether it has been only a few years or many that we have spent following our Lord in the Work, we can listen to those words of the Book of Revelation, as if they were addressed to us personally: Patience, I am coming soon; hold what is in thy grasp, so that none may rob thee of thy crown. Who wins the victory? I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, never to leave it again.

Christ watches over each one of his fellow men. But he asks for our good will, our sincere desire to correspond to his requests, to seek him every day, changing course as often as necessary, without becoming discouraged and rectifying when we have made a mistake or strayed from the path. We should not be so naive as to think that once we have begun to deal with our Lord our passions will have calmed down once and for all. We would be mistaken if we thought that our longing to seek Christ, and the fact that we are meeting him and getting to know him and enjoy the sweetness of his love, makes us incapable of sinning. Though your own experience will tell you, let me nevertheless remind you of this truth. Satan, God’s enemy and man’s, does not give up nor does he rest. He maintains his siege, even when the soul is ardently in love with God. The devil knows that it’s more difficult for the soul to fall then, but he also knows that, if he can manage to get it to offend its Lord even in something small, he will be able to cast over its conscience the serious temptation of despair.

Now, with the feast of St Joseph almost upon us, we are preparing to renew our dedication to God in the Work, remembering that ours is a life of love. Anyone who is not capable of loving, our founder once said, will find it very difficult to persevere in Opus Dei. Well then, love! Don’t hold your heart back! When you talk with our Lord in the silence of your heart, without the noise of words, and with his Mother and Joseph, who was his father on earth, say whatever comes into your mind, even though it may seem simplistic. Don’t try to write literature. Tell him about your own things: your concerns and your joys, your occupations…

And he added: Jesus had great affection for Joseph, and Mary was his Mother, whom he loved dearly. Then let us have great devotion to St Joseph, a tender, delicate, refined, affectionate devotion. We call him our Father and Lord. Then let us go to him as children, constantly! And, through him, to Mary, carrying on a dialogue with the two of them. Have you seen those representations of the Holy Family with the Child in the middle, the Blessed Virgin on the right and St Joseph on the left, taking him by the hand? Well, this time it is we ourselves who will take the hand of Mary and Joseph, and they will lead us to Jesus. We will begin to deal with him, and thus we will fall in love with his Blessed Humanity.