Latest / Into the Mysteries of the Rosary / A Mysterious Finding | Into the Mysteries of the Rosary Ep 6 | Fr. James Brent, O.P.

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A Mysterious Finding | Into the Mysteries of the Rosary Ep 6 | Fr. James Brent, O.P. · Into the Mysteries of the Rosary

• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, welcome to Into the Mysteries of the Rosary, a miniseries of the podcast contemplata.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: The mysteries of the Rosary reveal God's plan of adoption for us, and today we turn to the fifth joyful mystery, the finding of Jesus in the temple.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: The finding of Jesus reveals something about Jesus, something about Mary, and something about you and me.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Let's begin with what it reveals about Jesus.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: The first joyful mystery tells us that Jesus will be the Son of God.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: The second joyful mystery confirms the point when Saint Elizabeth exclaimed in the Spirit, Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: The third joyful mystery tells us that Jesus was born of a woman.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth joyful mystery that he was born under the law.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: What the fifth joyful mystery tells us is that already at the age of twelve, Jesus was aware of his own identity as the Son of God, and he was aware that his life was all about doing the work of his eternal Father.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: For when he was twelve years old, his parents were returning from their yearly trip to Jerusalem for the Passover.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus remained behind.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Joseph and Mary went in search of him.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: When they found him, he was seated in the temple among the teachers of the law, listening to them, asking them questions, and astonishing them with his answers.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: His interaction with the teachers is a prefiguration of similar interactions with the teachers of the law in his future public ministry.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yet already at the age of twelve, Jesus had an understanding beyond his years.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was from out of his advanced understanding that he would now answer not only the teachers of the law, but his own parents too.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: His parents asked him why he had treated them so.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: He replied, Why were you searching for me?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Did you not know that I must be in my father's house?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Already at this young age the words of Jesus are deep, with many layers of meaning.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: His questions were addressed to people in the story, to Mary and Joseph, but also addressed to you and me.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: In one way, Jesus is explaining himself to his parents, why he stayed behind in Jerusalem.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: In another way, though, Jesus is explaining himself to all of us.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: He is explaining to us all who he really is, or at least he begins to pull back the veil a little on his identity as the Son of God, and reveals his awareness of who he really is.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: The very question reveals that he already knows God as his own personal father.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now you and I are accustomed to hearing people call God Father.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: People say the Our Father all the time.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: But that is only due to the impact of Jesus upon the world.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: At the time, long before Jesus had taught the world to say our Father, it was not normal for anyone to call God Father.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: It might even be interpreted as blasphemy.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yet here, Jesus calls God my Father.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: At the time no one was in the custom of doing so.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: That explains why his parents did not immediately understand what he was saying.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: For when a Jewish male referred to his father, he normally meant his earthly father, not God.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Joseph, however, was standing right there.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: What did this choice of Jesus to stay behind in Jerusalem have to do with the affairs of Joseph?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Seemingly nothing.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: That is why the saying made no sense to them at the time.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just as Jesus astonished the teachers of the law, he also astonished his parents.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let us consider the question he puts to Mary and Joseph.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Did you not know that I must be in my father's house?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: That is the most common translation, but it is not the most literal.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: The most literal translation is, did you not know that I must be about my father's business?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: The point is worth noticing because it shows that already at the age of twelve, Jesus not only knew God as his own personal father, but Jesus also knew his own life was all about carrying out the work of his heavenly father.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: The question reveals an awareness of his mission.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: In short, Jesus was conscious of his sonship with the Father, and conscious of his own mission as well.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Are you?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: After all, when you were baptized, God adopted you by grace.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: In the previous episode we explained a little what that means.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: In your baptism, you received the spirit of adoption or the grace of adoption.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: When you did, you began to participate by grace in the eternal sonship of Jesus.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: You became, in a sense, another Christ in this world.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: You received his Father as your Father.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: You received His Spirit into your Spirit in a new way.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: You also began to share in a certain way in the mission of Christ.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: In Him and like Him.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Your mission is to love the Father with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Your mission is to love the Father and live in obedience to Him.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Your calling is to lay down your life in a loving sacrifice for the life of the world.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Each of us will do so in different ways, of course, each according to our state in life and our personal circumstances.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: But all of you who are baptized into Christ share in Christ's relationship with the Father.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: You also share in his mission to love the Father, obey the Father, and give yourself up completely into the hands of the Father.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is your model.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is your example.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is your guide.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is also the source of grace to help you do it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just as Jesus knew the Father as his Father, so you and I should know the Father as our Father, and call upon Him as our Father.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Just as Jesus knew He must be about His Father's business, so you and I need to wake up to our calling to be about the Father's business too.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just as Jesus lived and died in the Spirit of Love, so you and I are called to live and die in the Spirit of love too.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yet it often takes time for us to learn what God is up to in our lives.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: God is always doing way more than we can fathom.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: At any one point in time, God is forming us for great things yet to come.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph went in search of him.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Saint Luke tells us they searched for three days.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: For three days Mary experienced the absence of Jesus.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Surely she felt the loss, and she felt it sharply.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: But why three days?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was a formation experience and a preparation for another three day loss yet to come, the three days from Good Friday to Easter Sunday.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus died on Good Friday, Mary would again feel the loss and feel it much more sharply.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yet she also had the memory from years ago of the three days he was missing in Jerusalem.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Surely, all throughout Holy Saturday, she continued to ponder the memory in her heart.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: She remembered the saying now in a new light, Do you not know I must be about my father's business?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: The memory of finding him in the temple again filled her with hope that the story was not over.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: She would find him yet again.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: God worked with Mary.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: He formed her gradually over the course of her life to become the mother of us all.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it is with you and me too.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: You and I are weak and poor.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: At any one point in time we have very little understanding of what God is doing in our lives.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: We might be searching but have not yet found.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: We might be grieving a loss and feel no joy.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: We might be in the dark about what is coming next in our lives and are perhaps full of fear.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yet we know by faith that God is always doing something really good.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And when the appointed hour comes, we shall see his face once more.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to this episode of Contemplata.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends wherever you listen to podcasts.