The Gospel of to-day tells us, my brethren, how our Blessed Lady and St. Joseph lost Jesus on their way home from Jerusalem, where they had gone with him to keep the feast of the pasch, and how in great distress they returned to the city in search of him. What fears and anxieties must have filled their minds as they thought of the many enemies which he had among the rulers of the people, jealous of his promised kingdom, and of the harm which they would try to do him if they recognized him for the child whom Herod had sought to destroy! And how perplexed Mary and Joseph must have been that he who had hitherto saved himself by their protection should at this tender age abandon them and remove himself from their care! Had they not shown enough love and care for him? Had they proved themselves unworthy of him? Surely it could not be his purpose when so young to begin his great work. Would he not at least have told them if such had been his plan?
No, our Lord did not propose to begin his mission then; for, though he was indeed God, he was also then a child, and that mission was not a child's work. But he did wish to show them that his great work even then filled his heart and soul; that the fire of love for us, which brought him to the cross, was consuming him even in childhood. "Did you not know," he said to them when they found him, "that I must be about my Father's business?" "How is it that you sought me?" "You might have known," he seems to say, "that, if I were not with you, I must be in the temple speaking to my people of their God."
He also wished to give them an opportunity of merit by showing the love of God which filled their souls, too. For their grief was not the common grief of parents who have lost a child, great as that trouble is. It was the loss of the Divine Presence which affected them beyond measure. God had been with them for all those years as never with any one else, and now he had left them, they could not tell why or for how long. They would not have spared him for an hour, even to their kinsfolk and friends, with whom they thought he was, except for charity; and now he had left them, perhaps for the rest of their lives, which were worth nothing without him.
Would that we loved God, my brethren, as they loved him; that he were the light and consolation of our lives, as he was of theirs! Let us think of this as we reflect on their pain and anguish in that weary search for the visible presence of him whose grace was, after all, always in their souls. How is it with us? Would we care for this presence which they so bitterly missed? Would it not, perhaps, even be a painful restraint? Do we care, as it is, to be near Jesus? Is his presence in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar a consolation to us? We revere that real Presence of our Lord, but do we love it? If so, why do we not seek it more?
Do we even care for his presence by grace in our souls, which they always had in its fulness, and never dimmed by the shadow of sin? To lose that, had it been possible, would have been a thousand deaths to them; what is it to us? How easily do we lose that grace; how little do we care to regain it!
Oh! let us at least imitate our Blessed Mother and her Holy Spouse as far as this. If we do not love to be with Jesus as they did, let us at least seek to have him with us by his grace. If we have lost him, let us seek him, and not be weary till we find him; let us not rest till he comes again to our souls, never to leave them again.