Our Lent series continues with the third of the Seven Sorrows of Mary.
Read our Lent 2018 Series
Introduction- The Promises of the Devotion to the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Part 1- Lent Series: The First Sorrow of Mary and Her Role in the Salvation of Mankind
Part 2- Lent Series: The Second Sorrow of Mary and the Uncertainties in Life
Among the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary, the first three happened during the earlier years of Jesus. First, the Prophecy of Simeon on the Infant Jesus; Second, the Flight into Egypt with the older Child Jesus; and Third, which concludes The Infancy Narrative in the Gospel of Luke, is Jesus now a young boy of twelve.
The Third Sorrow of Mary is the Loss of Jesus in the Temple. The Holy Parents came from the Passover in Jerusalem. But only after journeying a day toward their home in Nazareth did they realize that they had lost the young boy Jesus, not knowing He stayed in the Temple.
41 And his parents went every year to Jerusalem, at the solemn day of the pasch,
42 And when he was twelve years old, they going up into Jerusalem, according to the custom of the feast,
43 And having fulfilled the days, when they returned, the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem; and his parents knew it not.
44 And thinking that he was in the company, they came a day’s journey, and sought him among their kinsfolks and acquaintance.
45 And not finding him, they returned into Jerusalem, seeking him.
46 And it came to pass, that, after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them, and asking them questions.
47 And all that heard him were astonished at his wisdom and his answers.
48 And seeing him, they wondered. And his mother said to him: Son, why hast thou done so to us? Behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.
49 And he said to them: How is it that you sought me? Did you not know, that I must be about my father’s business?
50 And they understood not the word that he spoke unto them.
51 And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them. And his mother kept all these words in her heart.
– Luke 2:41-51
Having an initial look at these Biblical passages, some might get confused and ask how come they lost Jesus. Were Mary and Joseph not responsible enough as parents? What does this story really tell us about Jesus, His Holy Parents, and the Mystery of God in our lives?
My Analysis and the Biblical Account of The Loss of Jesus in the Temple:
1. Saint Luke’s Gospel, through his account on the loss of Jesus in the temple, actually provides us a unique perspective about the Holy Family. It shows that they were faithful to Jewish law and tradition; that Jesus was a faithful Jewish boy, raised as such by His Holy Parents. Together as a family, they traveled all the way up to Jerusalem to fulfill “the custom of the feast” for the observance of the Jewish Pasch. The Passover is celebrated every year, as commanded by God, to commemorate the deliverance of the Israelites from their bondage and slavery in Egypt.
2. The loss of Jesus was not the fault of Mary and Joseph. Both did nothing wrong.
Many years ago, I was shock to hear a horrific blasphemy from a non-Catholic sect native to the Philippines. This cult’s leaders, whose members are unfortunately on ‘the old road of evil,’ were shouting with much fury, in their television program that the parents of Jesus were “neglectful parents,” and that they had “other children,” which were two of the reasons why they did not notice losing Him. That blasphemous claim is a gravely sinful lie.
As Catholics, we believe as we are taught that Mary and Joseph had the most pure and chaste marriage. Jesus definitely did not have any biological brothers.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) expounds on this in the Fourth Marian Dogma- the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, which proclaims that she is an “ever-virgin,” a Virgin before, in and after Christ’s birth:
499 The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary’s real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man. 154 In fact, Christ’s birth “did not diminish his mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it.” 155 And so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as Aeiparthenos , the “Ever-virgin”. 156
500 Against this doctrine the objection is sometimes raised that the Bible mentions brothers and sisters of Jesus. 157 The Church has always understood these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin Mary. In fact James and Joseph, “brothers of Jesus”, are the sons of another Mary, a disciple of Christ, whom St. Matthew significantly calls “the other Mary”. 158 They are close relations of Jesus, according to an Old Testament expression. 159
Mary and Joseph sacrificed everything to do the will of God. They endangered their own lives and faced years of estrangement from their land to save the Baby Jesus from harm, as explained further in my previous post. During that Passover, just because Jesus was already a “bigger kid” didn’t mean that His parents minded His welfare less. Overlooking His safety just wouldn’t make sense at all. So clearly, Jesus getting lost was not a fault of theirs, but an event that God Himself intended for a reason that’s unfathomable to the human mind.
3. That was why Mary felt so much sorrow- not knowing why the loss of their Child had happened. When they found Jesus, she said to Him, “Son, why hast thou done so to us? Behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” Take note that Mary did not ask Jesus to cause a guilt-trip on Him, or to rebuke Him for what He had done, making them look for Him for three days. Instead, she was asking Him WHY IT HAD TO HAPPEN. Mary’s words to Jesus were a humble expression of her sorrow and great distress, which Joseph equally felt. As human beings, the shared sorrow of the Holy Parents essentially came from struggling to understand why such occurrence had to happen in the Divine Mystery of God.
4. Jesus, for His part, did not sin as well, nor did he deliberately try to lose His parents as a form of adolescent disobedience, because He was God-Man and always perfectly obedient. The Bible verse prior to the story of the Loss of Jesus in the temple and its concluding narrative emphasize this- “And the child grew, and waxed strong, full of wisdom; and the grace of God was in him.” (Luke 2:40) “And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them.” With Jesus remaining behind the Temple clearly not out of defiance, what was it that He did then?
What Jesus did was to allow Himself to be lost temporarily by His Parents, so that they might understand the Divine Plan of Salvation that He was to accomplish. He said to Mary and St. Joseph, “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know, that I must be about my father’s business?” Those words of Jesus meant to reveal to them in greater depth what they already knew from the start- that He is the Son of God, and the Almighty is His Father; that being in the Temple, in His Father’s house, signified that He was set to do His Father’s work, and that nothing was more important to Him than to accomplish everything according to God’s will.
Therefore, we learn that the loss of Jesus happened by Divine Providence and so was His finding in the temple. In fact, the astounding wisdom and profound understanding of obedience to the will of God that He demonstrated at such a young age of twelve was an affirmation of the holiest example that His Parents Mary and Joseph taught Him in the most responsible way as the Child Jesus was growing up.
Mary took grasp of this mystery of God, contemplated on it, and “kept all these words in her heart.” Just like when she pronounced her perfect “Fiat” or “Yes” at the Annunciation and gave her consent to the Incarnation, she had come to a realization that in all these life events, Her Son was doing the will of God. And, as a handmaid of the Lord, she was collaborating with the whole work her Son was to accomplish.
6. Saint Joseph most probably contemplated as well on the words uttered by their Son, for although in an indirect manner, he too, had shared in the mystery of the Incarnation by being the foster-father of Jesus. God willed it for all eternity that Mary’s virginity was protected before and after the birth of Jesus. And it was Saint Joseph who made this virginal marriage with Mary possible. Certainly, Saint Joseph was also open to understand the mystery that Jesus was teaching them in that very moment at the Temple. I can say that this thought of mine is correct, because true to his depiction in the few times he was mentioned in the Bible, Saint Joseph was silent and did not say any word. Saint Joseph’s silence definitely must not be in a literal sense that he did not talk, but that is to highlight that he was a deeply contemplative soul. For me, I have always loved this story of the loss of Jesus in the temple, because this is the last biblical account of the living Joseph with his Wife and Child. In it, I’m able to get a glimpse of how much of a loving husband and father Saint Joseph was.
My Reflection:
1. God’s will is basically for us to obey His Commandments and live by the teachings of the Catholic Church. Still, God has very specific will for each one of us that He intends or allows to happen in one’s life. This includes the family we were born into, our physical attributes, strengths and weaknesses, the graces and misfortunes, or other occurrences. But sometimes, we have questions regarding these life matters, which are “mysteries” to us. Like I have said earlier, the Holy Parents initially felt that confusion in their loss of Jesus. We too may feel at a loss with what God is trying to tell us in a given situation, causing us to feel afraid, sad or even angry. It can be a real struggle to know what God’s will is, let alone understand it. But it is normal. Mary and Joseph showed us that they understood the sorrow or grief that comes in not fully knowing the reason why. They possessed great wisdom, but still needed the words of Christ in order to understand more deeply. Thus, ordinary human beings like us must humbly ask for God’s to help us understand His will in our lives, especially in those things which are most difficult to comprehend.
2. For some Saints, however, the will of God for them seemed to remain ‘unclear’ for a long time.
Let me tell you an example, a Belgian mystic named Saint Juliana of Liege. Two years after she entered the novitiate at 16 years old in 1208, she started having these visions that God chose her to establish the Feast of the Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, or the Blessed Sacrament. It took her 22 years before she submitted her God-appointed project to scholarly theologians. Although they had approved of it, she had enemies who took revenge on her, and looted her convent with violence. Much later, in 1256, the Bishop of Liege established the Feast in a diocesan parish, but he died that same year. Saint Juliana’s convent faced another ransack. At the same time, her enemies made false and defamatory statements against her, forcing her to leave the convent and stray homeless for the last 20 years of her life. So for 50 years, Saint Juliana of Liege labored for the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament to be established, but died at the age of 66 without any fruit in her work. God ‘gave her a hand’ only a century after her Visions, when Pope Urban IV finally established the Feast.
If we were Saint Juliana of Liege, I think some of us would complain to God, out of our human weaknesses. Some might even get angry toward Him. We might ask, “Why, God, would You give me a big revelation and ask me to establish it, but allow my enemies to ruin my reputation and bring me down? For 50 years, I worked, and in the last 20, I wandered homeless. I bore the task You gave, why let me die fruitless?”
3. We could really wonder why God did not send ‘protection’ to Juliana, His poor obedient servant. What we realize is that many times, as in this Saint’s story, we may not fully understand the will of God, especially in those happenings that are ‘painful.’ We seem to not hear His voice in our hearts even if we ask Him. It is possible that, like with this courageous woman, God will answer us only in the next life. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways—oracle of the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
4. So no, God might not tell us the ‘why’ on earth, but that should not stop us from desiring to know ‘what’ the will of God is and ‘how’ we can do it.
Even if we are in sorrow, even if we are unable to fathom God’s reasons, even if we find it hard to understand why something happened a certain way, we must seek and carry on with God’s will for us.
Pope Francis has some advice on how to do just that… in prayer. He said in his homily on January 27, 2015 at a Mass in the chapel of Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse, that there is a need for us, first, to pray to know God’s will, then to pray for the desire to do it, and finally, to follow it:
“Do I pray that the Lord gives me the desire to do his will, or do I look for compromises because I’m afraid of God’s will? To know God’s will for me and my life, concerning a decision that I must take; the way in which we handle things … there are so many things. For the third time, to follow it. To carry out that will, which is not my own, it is his will. And all this is not easy.”
5. Pope Francis said that we should be open and obedient to God’s will, like Mary and Joseph were. No matter how much we think of His will for us as ‘tough,’ God wants us to pray continuously. Just like planting a seed and caring for it until it grows into a tree, the more we plant prayers, the more we will be able to listen to the voice of God, and understand as much as we can His will for us.
6. The sorrowful hearts of Mary and Joseph bring comfort to us in our struggles. Let us remember that for all of us who remain faithful and patient, God will eventually turn our sorrows into joy; that our sorrows will be all worth it, just as when Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary found the Child Jesus in the Temple. Our Blessed Mother herself revealed “The Finding in the Temple” to be the Fifth Joyful Mystery. God, in His wisdom, knows exactly when He will grant us the grace of joy here on earth and in Heaven.
***
Human life in general, as I have mentioned, has ‘mysteries’ that ultimately point out to the Divine Mysteries that the Holy Parents wanted to learn from Jesus. And though these mysteries may give us sorrows, we must imitate Mary in keeping the words of Jesus in our hearts, contemplating on them, and seeking His Kingdom and His face.
Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!
Saint Joseph, pray for us!
Mama Mary, pray for us!
Amen.
She graduated cum laude from the University of Santo Tomas, the country's Pontifical and Catholic university, with an AB in Legal Management and minor units in Theology.
As an unmarried woman, prayer holds a central place in her daily life, with a focus on the Rosary and the Divine Office. Embodying her faith, she emphasizes the growth of her inner spiritual life, guided by the wisdom of Carmelite spirituality.
God manifested to her in a unique and radical manner, which made her know Who He truly is and led her to total surrender of her life to Him.
She has studied the Bible with her family, developing a particular fondness for the Old Testament.
Her adorable and intelligent toy poodle is a delightful companion in her daily life, bringing warmth and joy to her home.
Her hobbies include reading about everything, learning Japanese and German, listening to music and playing the flute.
In her leisure time, she enjoys gaming on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch OLED, Nintendo 3DS, iOS and OS, and collecting things related to PlayStation and Nintendo.
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Hi Mary Kris
Im from Ireland. I’ve been reading your blog quite a bit. I particularly enjoy your reflections on the 7 sorrows.
Thank you
And may God bless you..
Hi there Jack. Thank you so much as well for reading my Blog, and that you like my posts! Your country is very beautiful, from what I read. I remember that as a child, I read and watched about significant Catholic stories there such as Our Lady of Knock, shamrock symbolism and the like. So I can say that Ireland was also included to those that have shaped me as a devout Catholic faithful. It’s heartwarming that a good Catholic faithful yourself reads our Website. May God bless you too. Have a meaningful Holy Week and a blessed and glorious Easter Sunday.