Giving back what God has given

The Holy Family
27 December 2009


Let us worship Christ, the Son of God, who made himself obedient to Mary and to Joseph.

First reading 1 Samuel 1:20-22,24-28
Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son, and called him Samuel ‘since’ she said ‘I asked the Lord for him.’
When a year had gone by, the husband Elkanah went up again with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfil his vow. Hannah, however, did not go up, having said to her husband, ‘Not before the child is weaned. Then I will bring him and present him before the Lord and he shall stay there for ever.’
When she had weaned him, she took him up with her together with a three-year old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and she brought him to the temple of the Lord at Shiloh; and the child was with them. They slaughtered the bull and the child’s mother came to Eli. She said, ‘If you please, my lord. As you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you, praying to the Lord. This is the child I prayed for, and the Lord granted me what I asked him. Now I make him over to the Lord for the whole of his life. He is made over to the Lord.’

Psalm or canticle: Psalm 83:2-3,5-6,9-10

Second reading 1 John 3:1-2,21-24
Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us,
by letting us be called God’s children;
and that is what we are.
Because the world refused to acknowledge him,
therefore it does not acknowledge us.
My dear people, we are already the children of God
but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed;
all we know is, that when it is revealed
we shall be like him
because we shall see him as he really is.
My dear people,
if we cannot be condemned by our own conscience,
we need not be afraid in God’s presence,
and whatever we ask him,
we shall receive,
because we keep his commandments
and live the kind of life that he wants.
His commandments are these:
that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ
and that we love one another
as he told us to.
Whoever keeps his commandments
lives in God and God lives in him.
We know that he lives in us
by the Spirit that he has given us.


Gospel Luke 2:41-52
Every year the parents of Jesus used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up for the feast as usual. When they were on their way home after the feast, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem without his parents knowing it. They assumed he was with the caravan, and it was only after a day’s journey that they went to look for him among their relations and acquaintances. When they failed to find him they went back to Jerusalem looking for him everywhere.
Three days later, they found him in the Temple, sitting among the doctors, listening to them, and asking them questions; and all those who heard him were astounded at his intelligence and his replies. They were overcome when they saw him, and his mother said to him, ‘My child, why have, you done this to us? See how worried your father and I have been, looking for you.’ ‘Why were you looking for me?’ he replied ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ But they did not understand what he meant.
He then went down with them and came to Nazareth and lived under their authority. His mother stored up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom, in stature, and in favour with God and men.

Reflection
By Jeanne Therese Hilario-Andres

Letting go is hard.

After my first son was born, I was forever changed. Not just physically, but in all aspects of who I was, how I thought, what I considered important in life. Many of those life-changing transformations were quite positive and, I felt, deepened my sense of humanity. But some were extremely uncharacteristic and annoying, not least for me.

For instance, where pre-pregnancy me used to be daring, adventurous and intrepid when it came to danger and risks, post-baby me became cautious, prudent, near-paranoid with my son’s safety, obsessively child-proofing our home, making sure his crib, stroller, car seat, baby food, clothes, everything, met my standards for safety. My long-dormant maternal instincts, which I never even knew existed, kicked into hyper drive as I began to feel protective of the small, powerless creature which depended on me for all its needs. As he grew older, I consciously fought the urge to be the hovering, overprotective, super type-A mother I never wanted to be, and which I was sure Mary never was. I knew I had to let my child go, be exposed to germs, make mistakes, experience pain, fear and disappointment, otherwise he wouldn’t learn important lessons for himself. I knew that I needed to encourage his independence and his uniqueness, to love him while preparing to decrease my role in his life. By aiming to eventually make myself redundant, rather than needed, I would fulfill my God-given task as a parent, my child’s first teacher.

But it is not only to equip my children with life skills that I need to let go. When I relinquish my own plans, my own dreams for their future, my own agenda for their happiness, I allow God the freedom to mould them as He pleases. I let God teach them His ways. I let God truly be God in their lives. I give them a chance to beat their own path towards Heaven, to forge their own trail and to write the stories of their own souls. God’s call to salvation and to a living relationship with Him never comes by proxy. It is a call fine-tuned to the unique frequency of each of our heartstrings.

I believe this phenomenon, this challenge to let go of others, is true even for those who are single or have no child, but who have experienced what it’s like to really care for someone else. Can you think of such a relationship in your life where you have invested so much of yourself, where you are so emotionally attached and devoted towards its welfare, that you would do anything for its good? Where you would want to spare your loved ones from pain, illness, anxiety or disability, with a willingness to take their place, even in the face of death?

As Mary gazed on Jesus as He hung on the cross, would she not have given anything to take His place? To spare Him the shame, the suffering, the agony of a criminal’s death? Would she not have switched places with the baby she had held and nourished from its birth? Would she not have wanted to protect him, the child she had taught to walk and talk, the child she had prayed for each night, the child she loved more than her own life?

I believe Mary would have, but she didn’t. Instead, she allowed God to fulfill His purposes for her Son, entrusting His life and His death to the Lord, with all the inner strength that years of daily, practiced faith had given her. Mary did not intervene, did not try to shield her Son from the pain and torment of Calvary, because God had taught her and Joseph, very early on, in Bethlehem, in Nazareth, in Jerusalem, how to consecrate their Son to Him every single day of His life.

Mary and Joseph had learned to cut the unseen umbilical cord early. God had trained their hearts to love Jesus as a gift, a loan of love, theirs for a while, but His forever. The story of how they lost Jesus at age 12 and, after a frantic 3-day search, found Him in the temple, is but one example of how their hearts were being prepared for the time, many years later, when Jesus was to pursue His mission, God’s purpose, for Him. For all we know, many other such stories from Jesus’ childhood may have occurred, but have remained unwritten, un-chronicled, except in the quiet treasure chest of Mary’s heart.

All our children, our family, our relationships, the people we value and hold dear — they are all just a loan of love, too. They are ours for now, ours for a while, but ultimately, utterly, they are the Lord’s forever. Let us give back to the Lord all He has given us.


Lord, I dedicate and consecrate all the members of my family, all the people I love and care about, to You, for Your purposes, for Your plans, for Your use. I give You back all the relationships and friendships You have given me. I give You back all the people who are important to me— my parents, my siblings, my spouse, my children, my friends— for they belong to You. Let me not tighten my grip on these gifts, and allow me to focus on You, the Giver, instead. Prise my restless fingers away from the urge to control, possess or overprotect these gifts, and teach me to love them with a holy detachment, so that when the time comes, they will be free to follow Your will, and able to fulfill Your purposes for them, for Your glory. Amen.

Next week on God-speak
New Year, New Hope