Simple Thoughts on the Rosary: Joyful Mysteries: The Finding in the Temple
I.—I found Him whom my soul loveth: I held Him and I will not let Him go.—Cant. iii.
And His parents went every year to Jerusalem at the solemn day of the Pasch. And when He was twelve years old, they going up into 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 kinsfolk 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.—Luke 2.
1. See the Galilee caravan, numbering many thousands, on its way home, after its first night’s halt at Beeroth. Two pilgrims have separated themselves from it, and with sad yet peaceful faces are on their way back to Jerusalem.
2. See how, footsore and weary, they thread the narrow streets of the Holy City, scanning every party that they pass, making inquiries, suffering sorely, yet considerate for others, and at peace.
3. See them on the third day entering the Temple; making their way to a hall in the Court of the Women; coming upon a group of doctors; hearing a child’s voice; pressing forward; seeing the Child Jesus; meeting His eye and His smile.
II.—In the streets and the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul loveth; I sought Him and found Him not.—Cant. iii.
Where did Mary find her Divine Child? In the Temple. The first time she sought Him there? Assuredly not. She knew too well where His Heart was likely to lead Him, not to have gone straight to the Temple, when, with weary feet and anxious hearts, she and Joseph returned to Jerusalem seeking Him. Where should He be but in His Father’s house? Not once only, but again and again during that dreary time of desolation she sought Him there.
And there she found Him when the days of anguish were over. And there she had the embrace and the smile that made up to her for all her pain.
We turn instinctively to the Tabernacle in times of inward trial. And we do well. Where should we go in our trouble but to the God of all consolation? But if He does not show Himself to us as such, if the answer to prayer does not make haste to come, we lose heart, and leave off praying. We tire so soon. Our desires are so faint that almost at the outset we are ready to give over our search, and sit down and bemoan ourselves. Not so did Mary and Joseph. None ever sought Christ in the midst of such darkness and desolation as did those two faithful hearts. And none ever sought with greater diligence. Whatever place in the Holy City offered the smallest chance of finding Him, there they might be seen; going over the same ground a score of times; putting their question again and again; battling against the anguish and sinking of heart that grew with each hour of disappointment; bearing their trouble bravely; resigned to God’s Will, but suffering none the less for the perfection of their endurance.
It was to serve us as an example that Mary and Joseph sought wearily for Christ. We learn from ancient records that our Lord’s Apostles and first followers were wont to speak of Him amongst themselves as “our Teacher.” As a good teacher He has so planned His life and actions as to be able to offer Himself to us as a model in what is hardest and most painful in our way to heaven. Where He cannot Himself be our example, He gives us as His substitute the most apt of His disciples. So we have Mary and Joseph showing us with what patience and perseverance we must seek Christ when we have lost the joy of His sensible presence. How we must search every place where we are likely to find Him; examine our various duties and amusements to see if anything in them is keeping Him from us; go often to the church to seek Him there, and to gain there the courage to persist in our search until we find.
III.—Show me Thy face.—Cant. ii.
I compassionate thee, blessed Mother, in thy desolation. Help me in my days of darkness and discouragement. The anguish of those three days did not disturb thy peace of soul, thy confidence in God, thy resignation to His Will. Get me the grace to be drawn closer to Him by trial. Thy loss of Christ was without the smallest fault on thy part. Let me never lose Him by mortal sin. And let me hate all deliberate venial sin and negligence that builds up a barrier between my soul and Him.
Sometimes I forfeit the sense of His nearness and the freedom and happiness of my intercourse with Him by carelessness in my service of Him, in my daily duties, or by infidelity to grace. Sometimes I am left in darkness on account of sins in the past unatoned for. At times our Lord hides Himself, as He hid from His dear Magdalen, that He may see how I act when He does not seem to be by. Or He wants me to feel how poor and needy I am when left to myself. A time of trouble is often the harbinger of a great grace. It is always a sign of God’s love, sent to purify and strengthen my soul, to shorten my purgatory, to earn for me a higher place in heaven. This thought will help me to bear it as Mary and Joseph bore the pain of the three days’ loss, in peace, in patient trust, in the firm faith that all things, all things, without exception, work together unto good for those who love God.
IV.—Son, why hast Thou done so to us?—Luke ii.
1. Mary, His Mother and confidant, whose heart beat in perfect unison with His, was kept in ignorance of His designs. Can I wonder if God’s ways are often mysterious to me?
2. Because uncertainty and suspense are painful, we think that God should exempt us from them, or bring them quickly to an end. Mary felt both in this mystery, and with an intensity beyond any suffering of ours.
3. God could have spared her this trial but did not. If “those whom He foreknew, who according to His purpose are called to be saints, must be made conformable to the image of His Son,” the Man of Sorrows, how much more must the Mother of that Son be conformed to Him?
4. Her tender pleading: “Why hast Thou done so to us?” is like His cry on the Cross: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
5. And as “we have not a high-priest who cannot have compassion on our infirmities, but one tempted in all things like as we are without sin,” (Heb. 4), one “able to succour them that are tempted in that wherein He Himself hath suffered and been tempted” (Heb. 2), so we have a Mother and an advocate all the more ready to succour us in our hours of darkness and desolation, in that she herself has suffered the loss of Christ.
6. Mary had no sin to expiate, no evil inclinations to hinder her union with Christ. Yet God, in His loving sympathy for us, decreed that she should suffer a pain we might have thought impossible to her—weariness in seeking Christ, disappointment, heart-sinking, like us, that she might feel for us.
7. “Son, why hast Thou done so to us?” She knows now. When on Calvary she became our Mother, she learned how and why her marvellous power of sympathy had been bought.
8. “Lord, why hast Thou done so to us?” we ask at times when conscience does not reprehend us. And He says to us tenderly, as to Peter: “What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.”
9. “Why?” Because—apart altogether from the fact that, having lost Him by sin, or the sense of His presence by infidelity, we must painfully seek before we find—there is a reason why even from His faithful servants He hides Himself for awhile:
10. Search is at once a result of love, a trial of love, a purification of love, and the condition of love’s reward:
A result of love—“Querens me sedisti lassus.” Wearily, O Lord, hast Thou sought for me; wearily, if Thou wilt, yet constantly I will seek for Thee.
A trial and a purification of love—“How is it that you sought Me?” Have I sought the God of consolation, or the consolations of God?
The condition of love’s reward—“Seek and you shall find.” “For yet a little, and a very little while and He that is to come will come and will not delay.” “Surely I come quickly. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”
I thank Thee, Lord, that she who is to soothe Our forest pain, Has known the weary search for Christ, And search in vain:
That seeking Him, with Mary we may share Our hopes and fears, And in the hiding of His Face, take heart From Mary’s tears.
V.—I sought Him and found Him not: I called and He did not answer me.—Cant. v.
1. Therefore do I weep, and my eyes run down with water, because the Comforter, the relief of my soul, is far from me.—(Lament. 1.)
2. My tears have been my bread day and night, whilst it is said to me daily: Where is thy God?—(Ps. 41.)
3. Who will grant me that I might find Him?
But if I go to the left hand I shall not take hold on Him: if I turn myself to the right hand, I shall not see Him.—(Job 23.)
4. But He knoweth my way, and has tried me as gold that passeth through the fire. My foot hath followed His steps... and the words of His mouth I have hid in my bosom.—(Ibid.)
5. I will rise and go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul loveth: I sought Him and I found Him not.—(Cant. 5).
6. The watchmen who kept the city found me: Have you seen Him whom my soul loveth?—(Ibid.)
7. When I had a little passed by them, I found Him whom my soul loveth: I held Him: and I will not let Him go.—(Ibid.)
8. I sat down under His shadow whom I desired.—(Cant. 2.)
9. Show me Thy face, let Thy voice sound in my ears, for Thy voice is sweet and Thy face comely.—(Ibid.)
10. My Beloved to me, and I to Him... Till the day break and the shadows retire.—(Ibid.)