🌟Today specifically celebrates the liturgy corresponding to the 1st Sunday after Epiphany, centered on the mystery of the adolescent Jesus and His manifestation to the doctors of the Law. This moment marks the transition between the childhood and the public life of the Savior, revealing the divine wisdom hidden beneath the humility of the flesh. The episode of the Finding in the Temple, followed by the hidden life in Nazareth, offers the perfect model for the sanctification of family life and the fulfillment of the duties of one's state. The Church invites us to meditate on the "spiritual worship" or "reasonable service" we owe to God, imitating Christ's submission to Mary and Joseph, and recognizing that true wisdom consists in seeking first the things of the Father, growing in grace and virtue in the silence of daily life.
🎶Introit (Is 6:1; Ps 99:1)
In excélso throno vidi sedére virum, quem adórat multitúdo Angelórum, psalléntes in unum: ecce, cuius impérii nomen est in ætérnum. Ps. Jubiláte Deo, omnis terra: servíte Dómino in lætítia.
I saw a man seated on a high throne, whom a multitude of Angels adore, singing together: Behold, Him the name of whose empire is for eternity. Ps. Sing joyfully to God, all the earth; serve ye the Lord with gladness.
📜Epistle (Rom 12:1-5)
Brethren: I beseech you, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and the acceptable and the perfect will of God. For I say, by the grace that is given me, to all that are among you, not to be more wise than it behoveth to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety and according as God hath divided to every one the measure of faith. For as in one body we have many members, but all the members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.
📖Gospel (Lk 2:42-52)
When Jesus was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem, according to the custom of the feast. And having fulfilled the days, when they returned, the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem; and his parents knew it not. And thinking that he was in the company, they came a day's journey, and sought him among their kinsfolks and acquaintance. And not finding him, they returned into Jerusalem, seeking him. 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. And all that heard him were astonished at his wisdom and his answers. 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. 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? And they understood not the word that he spoke unto them. 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. And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and men.
🕯️The Wisdom of Silence and Reasonable Oblation
⚖️Today's liturgy establishes a profound connection between the Pauline doctrine of the Mystical Body and the hidden life of the Holy Family, revealing that true Christian wisdom lies in the conformity of the human will with the divine through humility. St. Paul, in the Epistle, exhorts us to present our bodies as a "living sacrifice" and "reasonable service" (rationabile obsequium), which means that our entire physical and moral existence must be oriented towards God, not irrationally or automatically, but with full consent and discernment. This teaching finds its perfect incarnation in the Gospel: Christ, Eternal Wisdom, submits Himself to the Law by going up to Jerusalem and, paradoxically, manifests His divinity by remaining in the Temple, occupying Himself with His Father's business. St. Ambrose observes that Jesus taught the doctors not by presuming authority, but by questioning them with humility, demonstrating that the Wisdom of God often confounds the wise of the world (St. Ambrose, Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam). However, the summit of this lesson is not only in the Temple but in the return to Nazareth: "and was subject to them." He whom the Angels adore on the "high throne" (Introit) makes Himself a subject of Joseph and Mary. As St. Bernard of Clairvaux teaches, "God obeys a man; such humility has no parallel." This submission is not a diminution, but the fulfillment of justice, showing that the "living sacrifice" is realized in daily obedience and the fulfillment of the duties of one's state, where each member of the body performs their function without pride, contributing to the harmony of the whole, according to the design of the Heavenly Father.
🇺🇸See English version of the critical articles here.
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