Our Lady Saint Mary

by J. G. H. Barry

CHAPTER XII

THE TEMPLE

And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought
me? Know ye not that I must be in my Father's house?
S. Luke II, 49.

We give thanks unto thee, O Lord, who lovest mankind, Thou benefactor of our souls and bodies, for that Thou hast this day vouchsafed to feed us with Thy Heavenly Mysteries; guide our path aright, establish us all in Thy fear, guard our lives, make sure our steps through the prayers and supplications of the glorious Mother of God and Ever Virgin Mary and of all Thy saints.

RUSSIAN.

he time was come when by the law of His people the Boy Jesus must assume the duties of an adult in the exercise of His religion. Therefore His parents took Him with them to Jerusalem that He might participate in the celebration of the Passover. It would be a wonderful moment in the life of any intelligent Hebrew boy when for the first time he came in contact with the places and scenes which were so familiar to him in the story of his nation's past; and we can imagine what would have been the special interest of the Child Jesus who would have been so thoroughly taught in the Old Testament Scriptures, and who would have felt an added interest in the places He was now seeing because of their association with His great ancestor, David. Still His chief interest was in the religion of His people, and it was the temple where the sacrificial worship of God was centred that would have for Him the greatest attraction. This was His "Father's House," and here He Himself felt utterly at home. We are not surprised to be told that He lingered in these courts.

"And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and His mother knew it not." They had perfect confidence in Jesus; and yet it seems strange that they should have assumed that He was somewhere about and would appear at the proper time. When the night drew on and the camp was set up there was no Child to be found. Then we imagine the distress, the trouble of heart, with which Mary and Joseph hurry back to Jerusalem and spend the ensuing days in seeking through its streets. We share something of our Lord's surprise when we learn that the temple was the last place that they thought of in their search. Did they think that Jesus would be caught by the life of the Passover crowds that filled the streets of Jerusalem? Did they think that it would be a child's curiosity which would hold him fascinated with the glittering toys of the bazaars? Did they think that He had mistaken the caravan and been carried off in some other direction and was lost to them forever? We only know that it was not till three days had passed that they thought of the temple and there found Him. "And when they saw Him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto Him, Son, why has thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? Know ye not that I must be in my Father's house?"

S. Mary and S. Joseph were proceeding on certain assumptions as to what Jesus would do which turned out to be untenable. It is one of the dangers of our religion--our personal religion--that we are apt to assume too much which in the testing turns out to be unfounded. We reach a certain stage of religious attainment, and then we assume that all is going well with us. When one asks a child how he is getting on he invariably answers: "I am all right." And the adult often has the same childish confidence in an untested and unverified state of soul. We are "all right"; which practically means that we do not care to be bothered with looking into our spiritual state at all. We have been going on for years now following the rules that we laid down when we first realised that the being a Christian was a more or less serious matter. Nothing has happened in these years to break the placidity of our routine. There has never been any relapse into grievous sin; we have never felt any real temptation to abandon the practice o£ our religion. We run along as easily and smoothly as a car on well-laid rails. We are "all right."

But in fact we are all wrong. We have lapsed into a state of which the ideal is purely static: an ideal of spiritual comfort as the goal of our spiritual experience here on earth. We have acquired what appears to be a state of equilibrium into which we wish nothing to intrude that would endanger the balance. We are, no doubt, quite unconsciously, excluding from life every emotion, every ambition, as well as every temptation, which appears to involve spiritual disturbance. But we need to be disturbed.