FRIENDS and SERVANTS of the WORD
Saturday 25 June 2022 12th Week of Ordinary Time
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY
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. (Luke 2: 41-51)
How shall I live this Word? 
We must recognize that we have sometimes emphasized Mary of Nazareth and our devotion risks embarrassing her because she was used to step aside to point only to her Son. We point the spotlight on her, instead of silently standing beside her and learning. Could it be for this reason that today’s Gospel passage was chosen to celebrate the feast of a mother’s love? The Gospel of a son who runs away from home, who lingers in his Bar Mitzvah, (ceremony for a boy who has reached religious majority), in that moment when a teenager is questioned about his knowledge of the law and becoming a ‘son of the law’. The scribes are amazed. Jesus knows the Torah well! But the astonished attitude of the parents shows us the mystery of autonomy, of diversity. Mary cannot and never will be at ease with this son and His fame; she will have to respect the mystery, give Him to the world. The experience of every mother, the painful umbilical cut for which a child you have nurtured in your womb for nine months is now a man, that is, someone else. For Mary, it will become a difficult reality and she will soon have to learn to respect the unprecedented diversity of her Son and in this, help Him save the world.
Mary, teach us to love without possessing.
The Voice of Khalil Gibran, Poet
The most beautiful word on the lips of human beings is ‘Mother’. And the loveliest invocation is, “My Mother”. She is the source of love, of mercy, of understanding, of forgiveness. Everything in creation speaks of the Mother.
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E-mail: srmterzo@gmail.com Website: www.sanbiagio.org info@sanbiagio.org Blog: livingscripture.wordpress.com Comment by Sr. Emilia Di Massimo, FMA
