“Each year Jesus’ parents went up to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover, and when he was twelve years old they went up according to festival custom.” Luke 2,41

At twelve, Jesus enters a new stage in life – his “Bar Mitzvah.” He took on the responsibilities of the law, which later he said was: “Love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart…Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Growing up, Joseph and Mary led him to know God and his neighbor in nature, in the scriptures and in ordinary human life at Nazareth. Their hand is evident in his later teaching; they influenced him. Now he entered a new stage in his life; “each year” the attraction to the temple increased, until he “had” to go up to Jerusalem. His destiny was there.

The young Jesus was absorbed in the life of the temple, Luke indicates. Here he questioned the rabbis in its courts, but more importantly here he experienced in a unique way the Presence of God. “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house.”

What did Joseph and Mary make of this as they anxiously searched for the Son they raised as their own? Certainly it raised questions, but did they too grow in love of his Father’s house when they found him? Did he deepen their thirst for the living God who dwelt there?