5.
The sense of the things of Gods
“You are a scandal to me, for you think not as God thinks, but as men think!” (Mt
16:23). One could translate literally: “You are a scandal to me because you do not
have the sense of what belongs to God, but what of what belongs to men”. St. Paul
will say, in something of the same sense, but using another term: “We have the
thought of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). This genitive of possession should orient us. To
whom does my thought pertain, to whom does my judgment pertain, my feeling,
whose is the sense of things, the “wisdom” that directs my life, my choices, my
willing and not willing? Is it “of God” or “of men”, that is, worldly?
When Mary and Joseph found the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple, they
reproached him for having taken a different path than the ordinary, normal one that
they were following, for having made a choice that eluded their decisiveness. Jesus
responded in a way somewhat like the way he corrected Peter: “Did you not know
that I must occupy myself with the things of my Father?” (Lk 2:49), literally: “Did
you not know that I must be in the things that are my Father’s?”
Jesus was completely within his belonging to the Father, and for this reason he
remained in the Temple, just as he will remain wholly submissive to Mary and
Joseph in Nazareth (2:51a), because his human family was also a thing of his Father
to which he wanted to be present up to the end.
Well, it is this sense of belonging to the Father that Jesus asks of Peter and of those
who are his, and he asks for it through to the depth of the heart, to thought that
moves in us and determines our freedom, our choices, our decisions, our judgments,
which then move a person’s speaking and acting. He asks for it even to the sense
that we give ourselves and all of reality.
Note that when Jesus reminded his parents of the priority of his being entirely the
Father’s, of his being entirely within his belonging to the Father, Mary immediately
began an interior labor, a labor, therefore, of thought, of judgment, of conformity of
her freedom to the truth revealed in the Son: “His mother kept all these things in
her heart” (Lk 2:51b).
The boy left with them from Jerusalem right away, and was obedient to them, but
for Mary the event as not just a bit of mischief that turned out fine, to be forgotten.
Jesus’s words caused her to make a leap upward in awareness, in the position of her
heart, in the sense of living, and of living with Him, and from this point she knew
she could not turn backward, that in this she must follow Jesus to the end, because
Jesus was also always progressing in his dedication to the things of his Father, even
while remaining with them as before. The thoughts of Mary’s heart then guided her
freedom all the more to follow Jesus’s obedience to the Father as the way of her
vocation.
About twenty years later, Mary would not have reacted like Peter to the
announcement of the Passion, because her whole life had formed God’s thoughts in
her, more concerned with consenting than with knowing everything first. To have
the sense of God’s things, in fact, means an availability of heart, an opening to God’s
1
plan, therefore a condition of freedom, a conception of one’s own freedom, rather
than an understanding or a conception of that which should or should not happen.
It is a position of the heart, of freedom, in the present, which takes note of Christ
now in order to follow him to the end in the future, which changes totally if my
present gives itself over here and now to the things of God, to the sense of the things
of God.
Think what a change of consciousness, what a deepening of awareness, the words
of the twelve-year-old Jesus must have worked in Mary, and surely also in Joseph.
It is stunning to think of it! Exteriorly everything remained the same, their daily life
remained the same, such that no canonical Gospel reports any sort of novelty for
almost another twenty years. They were certainly already aware of the mystery
before, but up to that day Mary had meditated on the words of the angel, on what
had happened at Bethlehem, or on the words of Simeon and Anna in the Temple,
and Joseph, even quieter, had also meditated on the angel’s words, and on the
warnings given to him in dream to save the Baby. But up to that episode of the
twelve-year-old Jesus nothing in particular had come from Jesus himself, the
Gospels report no particular words or events, as the hagiographers love to create
for the infancy of the saints.
That day in the Temple, behold, the Word of God opens his mouth, speaks, and says
something that unsettles the normal course of their life, even if they were aware
that he was the Messiah and the Son of God. Of course, Mary was always awaiting
what would happen with Him. And yet, that day she was not expecting anything
new, she was not expecting it like that. She lived through that circumstance and she
spoke as any mother would have done, with the same anxiety, with the same
anguish, perhaps even with the same impatient resentment, the same
disorientation that parents feel before the inconsistencies of adolescents. It is Jesus
who looks at her, who does not excuse himself, who already has the authority to
demand of them an upward leap of sense, of awareness, who questions Mary and
Joseph, calling them to a leap of adjustment to His vocation and mission. Just as will
happen with Peter and the disciples when he will tell them that he will have to
suffer, die, and rise to save the world. Peter needed a forceful reminder like a
cannon-blast, he needed a punch in the gut to make this upward leap in sense, in
awareness. For Mary and Joseph, already totally available for the Father’s plan,
already intent on listening to God, a gentle reminder was enough, a simple question,
or rather two related questions: “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know
that I must occupy myself with the things of my Father?” (Lk 2:49).
Luke adds: “But they did not understand the word that he had spoken to them”
(2:50).
Then, as I was saying, normal life begins again right away, normal, daily, banal,
silent, faithful, poor, hidden, for twenty years or more. “Then he went down with
them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them” (Lk 2:51). And Luke
immediately adds that Mary “treasured all these things [literally: all these words] in
her heart” (ibid.).
