When God cannot be found
VERŻJONI MALTIJA
Presence:
• In my imagination, I picture Jesus who is twelve years of age… what does he look like, how does he interact with Mary and Joseph?
• I imagine him walking to Jerusalem with his parents and other pilgrims. I see him looking at me and inviting me to join the journey towards the Temple.
I ask what I wish for: I pray that I continue to seek Jesus with hope until I find him.
Opening exercise: Think of a time when you lost something important, and you managed to find it. How did you feel when you lost it? How was the feeling when you found it again?
I read twice: Lk 2: 41-52 The Boy Jesus at the Temple
41 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. 42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. 43 After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44 Thinking he was in their company, they travelled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
Points for meditation:
• Where do I see Jesus in my life? – maybe in some person I met, the Word, prayer etc.
• Mary and Joseph looked for Jesus in the crowd. What is the crowd in which I feel Jesus gets lost in my life? Maybe the busyness of life, activities which do not give life, distractions from the essential things in life. How could I focus more on being with Jesus rather than doing?
• Mary and Joseph spent three days looking for Jesus. They continued to look for him with an intentional effort despite the anxiety. How do I continue my search for Jesus with hope, even when I do not feel Jesus is with me?
• They found Jesus in Jerusalem, and realised that he was never really lost…they were looking in the wrong place. Is it possible that when I feel distant from Jesus, it is because I moved not because he has? How do I trust Jesus is doing God’s work in me even if I do not feel Him?
• Jesus thought his mission was to be in Jerusalem, but through the events of those three days and his encounter with Mary and Joseph, he discovers that his Father’s will is to return with them to Nazareth, to ordinary life. How could I, like Jesus, actively seek what it means concretely to do my Father’s will?
Conversation: I speak to Jesus about what happened, leaving moments of silence to treasure this moment of prayer in my heart.
Witness: St Peter Favre sj
Peter Favre was a shepherd in France when he was young but at the age of 19 he entered Unviersity to study in Paris. Here he met Francis Xavier and Ignatius of Loyola. These three became roommates and Peter tutored Ignatius in philosophy. In the room they shared, they spoke of God, serving the Church and of working in the Holy Land. Peter was the first of the three to be ordained to the priesthood first. They tried to go to the Holy Land but failed due to unrest in the region, so they decided to place themselves at the service of the Pope. Pope Paul II sent Peter to Germany where only two decades before, Martin Luther had divided the Church.
He was deeply shaken by what he encountered. The Church was not only fractured by the momentum of the Reformers, but also by the very realities that had provoked their protest: the lack of spiritual depth among parts of the clergy, widespread abuses, and a troubling mediocrity in Christian living. It became clear to him that reform was indeed necessary – yet not in the manner proposed by Martin Luther.
While faithfully carrying out the responsibilities entrusted to him by the Pope – including participating in the Protestant-Catholic dialogue convened by the Emperor – Fr. Peter discerned that the deeper need was for an interior renewal within the Catholic Church. Rather than beginning with structures or arguments, he began with hearts.
Through gentleness and authentic friendship, he reached people across every social rank and state of life. He guided them toward the profound conversion to Christ that lies at the heart of Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. The hunger for this spiritual renewal grew rapidly. So many sought the Exercises, and so respected was he as a guide of souls, that he wrote to Ignatius saying there was enough work in Germany for ten more Jesuits.
God seemed lost when he went to Germany. However, he was able to trust in God’s work and worked in obedience and through perseverance.
Reference:
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/saints/08/01/st-peter-faber–jesuit.html
From Pierre Favre’s Memorial:
“Previously, on the contrary, I mean before I had set the direction of my life thanks to the help God gave me through Inigo, I had always walked very uncertainly, tossed about by every wind, wanting one day to get married, another day to become a doctor, or a lawyer, or a regent, or a doctor of theology, or a cleric without rank, and sometimes even wanting to be a monk; I was driven by these winds, according to whatever prevailed, that is, according to the attraction of the moment. As I said, the Lord delivered me from all these impulses through the consolations of his Spirit, and he led me to make the decision to become a priest, to be wholly devoted to his service…”
From Pierre Favre’s Memorial
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