The Gospel for today:

Each year Jesus’ parents went up 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 looking 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 where 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 he was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favour before God and man. Amen.

Today we read in the Gospel the familiar story about the Holy family going to Jerusalem for the Passover.  The Gospel tells us that after the Passover, the Holy Family were on their way back to Nazareth, but the Child Jesus stayed behind without his parents knowing, when his parents found that Jesus was not with their relatives or acquaintances, they looked everywhere for him and they found him in the Temple three days later. Mary said to Jesus that they have been looking for him and Jesus replies, “Did you not know that I was must in my Father’s house,”

How do we fit this story into our daily lives?

We are on a journey where our Jesus is to celebrate the Passover in heaven with the whole company of heaven, with the Holy Family at the right hand of God.

We are also sometimes nowhere to be found when Jesus looks for us and sometimes we close the door so Jesus can’t get through. We are sometimes the ones searching for something and sometimes it is Jesus himself that we are look for.

We find Jesus everywhere, but especially in the Father House, the Church. And also in the Sacraments.

Are we going to be found in our Father’s house or as some Bibles say “dealing with my Father’s affairs?”  are we like Jesus, are we dealing with our Father’s affairs, we as Dominican’s are dealing with our Father’s affairs every time we are doing our ministry, every time we say Mass, preaching, helping the poor, visiting the sick and also praying for the needs of the world.

Our Father’s house is everywhere we do our ministry.

At the end of the Gospel we read that Jesus went back to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.

And that is what we are called to do, be obedient unto death.

Finally, let us pray for each other in the world that we live in, and by the example of the Holy Family and the Child Jesus, be obedient to the teaching of the Church and the our Dominican Rule and our Superiors. Amen.