Meditation of His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa: the Holy Family

This Meditation is shared from the website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

Below you can find the Meditation of His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, for the Holy Family, Sunday 29 December 2024.

Today's Gospel (Luke 2:41-52) describes Jesus' journey with his family to Jerusalem for the Passover.

The first element that strikes us is that the whole passage is permeated with tension.

On the one hand, we find elements of tradition with all the rites and customs that the people of God had to observe: the evangelist Luke repeats that Jesus' parents went up to Jerusalem every year (2:41), and this year they also went up according to custom (2:42). And he indicates that they will stay there for the necessary days to take part in the rites of the feast.

And not only that: he also indicates that this pilgrimage is a family ritual, which points to the close affiliation to a clan, to an extended family: they set off again from Jerusalem in the certainty that Jesus is with them, and if they do not find him, they look for him among relatives and acquaintances (Lk 2:44).

Luke uses many verses to frame this element, which tells of Jesus' strong sense of belonging to his family - a very important element.

On the other hand, in this very traditional climate, characterized by established customs, there is also an element of rupture, of discontinuity: something happens that breaks with tradition, that falls out of convention.

Jesus goes up to Jerusalem with his own, but then does not return home with them (Luke 2:43).

Unnoticed by everyone, he decides to stay there.

He does not set off to return to normal life in Nazareth, but stays in the temple and talks to the teachers of the faith: he listens to them and asks them questions (Lk 2:46).

Why does he do this?

We could say that there are two searches surrounding this event.

On the one hand, there is the search of Joseph and Mary, who return full of fear to find the son they have lost.

It is the image of the search of every human being who can never say that he has finally found the Lord and who retraces his steps every day, from the beginning, to find his presence in his own life.

But not only that, but before this search there is also the search of Jesus, who stops in the temple to seek his Father, to recognize him, to meet him (Lk. 2:48).

Jesus loses himself in order to find the Father, and this is what he will do throughout his life: seek the Father, relate to him, live his life as a son in total obedience to his will.

And Jesus speaks of this obedience by using a verb that will appear several times in the course of the Gospel: "it is necessary" (Lk 2:49). For Jesus, it is necessary to deal with the things of the Father.

Mary and Joseph do not understand what all this means (Lk 2:50), just as the disciples will not understand the meaning of the words with which Jesus will announce that it is necessary for him to place his life in the hands of people who will let him die a shameful death.

At the end of the episode, Mary and Joseph do not find Jesus again.

Or rather, they find him again in a new way, as a son who belongs to a greater plan, who carries a mystery that transcends them.

Finally, Jesus returns to Nazareth, together with his own, and Luke indicates that he remained with them in submission (Lk 2:51).

Jesus remains subject to these parents who accept his mystery, who allow him the freedom to seek and obey the Father, who do not fully understand him, but who, as Luke says of Mary (Lk 2:51), also cherish in their hearts that which is greater than themselves.

Jesus continues to seek the Father and to live according to him: not so much in the temple of Jerusalem, but in the humble, ordinary life of an ordinary family, in which we obey one another in order to open ourselves together to the will of the Father, the will according to which we must give our lives to one another.

This Meditation was originally published on the website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.