HOLY FAMILY:1Sam 1:11,20-22,24-28; 1Jn 3:1-2,21-24; Lk 2:41-52

Stephen Glenn tells a wonderful story about a famous research scientist who had made several very important medical breakthroughs. A newspaper reporter interviewed this scientist and asked why, in his opinion, he was so much more creative than the average person.

This scientist answered that he believed it was because of an experience he had with his mother when he was about two years old. He had been trying to get a bottle of milk out of the refrigerator when he lost his grip on it, spilling its contents all over the kitchen floor. It created a veritable sea of milk!

When his mother came into the kitchen, instead of yelling at him, giving him a lecture or punishing him, she said, "Robert, what a great and wonderful mess you have made! I have rarely seen such a huge puddle of milk. Well, the damage has been done. Would you like to play in the milk for a few minutes before we clean it up?"

Robert thought that was a great idea. After a few minutes, his mother said, "You know, Robert, when you make a mess like this, eventually you have to clean it up. So, how would you like to do that? Would you rather use a sponge, a towel, or a mop?" He chose the sponge, and together they cleaned up the mess. His mother then said, "You know, what we have here is a failed experiment in how to effectively carry a big milk bottle with two little hands. Let's go out to the back yard and fill the bottle up with water. Then we'll see if you can figure out a way to carry it without dropping it." The little boy learned that if he grasped the bottle at the top with both hands, he could carry it without dropping it. It was a wonderful lesson!

This renowned scientist then remarked that at that moment he knew he didn't need to be afraid of making mistakes. Instead, he learned that mistakes were just opportunities for learning something new, which is, after all, what scientific experiments are all about. Even if the experiment doesn't work, we usually learn something valuable from it.

Today’s feast of Holy Family stands besides parents anxious about their children, worrying for their welfare. Through any challenge, anxiety, difficulty or danger, they showed us how to be people of faith, people of forgiveness, people of love.

We can imagine how misunderstood both Mary and Joseph when Mary conceived through Holy Spirit. She experienced the threat of divorce. Jesus was born in animal's shelter in Bethlehem. The family had to flee to Egypt as refugees because Jesus' life was in danger due to Herod. There was growing hostility to Jesus by the Jewish authorities. The saddest moment came when the mother watched her son die on the cross.

We can only imagine Mary and Joseph's conversation when, at the end of a day's journey, they realized that Jesus was not with their caravan. In those days, pilgrims who came to Jerusalem for the holy days came in large groups that included extended families and neighbors.

Traveling together was safer, and it also helped create the festive atmosphere required by the holy days. And usually the caravans were divided into groups of men and women. This is why it's understandable that Mary and Joseph lost Jesus.

Joseph would have thought Jesus was somewhere with the women (the children often traveled with the women), and Mary would have thought he was with Joseph (after all, he was now twelve-years-old, so he could officially join the men's group). Only at the end of the day's travel, when each individual family got back together for the night, would they have realized that Jesus wasn't with them. That's when the "great anxiety" clamped down on their hearts. The anxiety would have included fear, anger, uncertainty, sadness, frustration, a sense of helplessness – all the disturbing emotions that our own family troubles so often cause us.

We can even imagine Joseph and Mary playing a little bit of the blame game as they discovered what happened (though I am sure it didn’t last long). And the amazing thing is that God permitted this. He had a reason for allowing them to suffer in this way. He was preparing them for Christ's Passion. This is why St Luke points out specifically that they only found Jesus again on the third day since they lost track of him. In the same way, Mary would find Jesus again after his passion only on the third day, the day of his resurrection. Many times, God guides us in the same way. He allows sufferings to cross our paths, not because he likes torturing us, but because he wants to purify us, to make us grow in wisdom, to prepare us to meet the Risen Jesus, to draw us closer and closer to his own suffering heart.

By staying back in Jerusalem to attend to his heavenly Father's business, Jesus is showing Joseph and Mary (and us) that our primary responsibility in life, our primary mission as human beings, is to find and follow God's call. Nothing, not even the strong, deep ties of family affection and loyalty, should interfere with our obedience to God.

When St Francis of Assisi discovered God's call in his heart and decided to dedicate his life completely to God's service, his father, a successful businessman, threatened to disown and disinherit him. His father did everything possible to discourage his son from following God's call in his life. And in order to be faithful to his heavenly father, Francis was forced to live with the violent rejection of his earthly father.

In our lives too we sometimes feel the opposition between what would please our family members and what we know God is asking of us. We can face this opposition in little things, like the inconvenience of coming to Mass on Sunday mornings, or of taking time to pray together as a family, for example. Or we can face the opposition in big things, like the apparent inconvenience of adhering to solid moral truths about artificial contraception, divorce and remarriage, and homosexuality.

It is not always easy to follow God's wisdom when those closest to us don't agree with it, but it is always the best and surest path to peace of mind and interior freedom. Staying close to our heavenly Father must be our first priority.

When Mary and Joseph finally found Jesus, teaching all the scholars and rabbis in the Temple, they expressed their frustration. It could have been a moment of conflict. It could have been a moment when one of the three, or all of them, lost their temper and lashed out at the others for not understanding or respecting them.

Jesus makes his comment about "his Father's house," and that reminded Mary and Joseph to try and see the difficult situation from God's perspective. And that reminder defused the tension, anger, frustration, and high emotion. St Luke tells us that although Mary didn't understand fully what Jesus meant, she "kept all these things in her heart."

Just as the holy family survived all its crises through love for each other and faith in God, let us pray during this Mass that our families will conquer all difficulties through love for each other and faith in God.