Why Jesus Seemed Lost - Holy Family - December 30, 2018

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family.  Families are a great blessing.  I’m sure that we all can think of great moments in our lives that we had with our families.  However, family life has its challenges too.  Even the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph had its challenges... 

Why Jesus Seemed Lost - Holy Family - December 30, 2018
Click here to download the homily

Readings:  1 SM 1:20-22, 24-28; PS 84:2-3, 5-6, 9-10.; 1 JN 3:1-2, 21-24; LK 2:41-52

The Holy Family from my Nativity Scene

Below is a related bulletin article:

Jesus Sometimes Seem Lost

Sometimes Jesus may seem like He is lost, that He is absent or distant.  Such times in one’s prayer life is normal, and one of the possible reasons that it can happen is to teach us something.  Maybe Jesus is teaching us to love Him more than we love the gifts that He gives us.  To help us overcome the attachment to the gifts, those gifts might be withheld so that we can learn to love and follow the Giver.  We should ponder these things in our hearts to learn what He wants to teach us.

However, God might seem distant for other reasons too.  For example, He might seem distant because we stopped looking for Him; we lost interest in Him; or we speed through our prayers or simply stopped praying.  When you stop spending time with a friend, your relationship starts to fade and you’re not as close to each other anymore.  So too it is with Jesus.  When we stop seeking Him, He seems to be lost or missing.  When prayer is treated as task to complete, we often miss Jesus, but when we seek Him, then we can find Him.

Jesus might also seem missing or lost because of sin.  Sin is an offense to God and it damages or even destroys our friendship with Him.  God resides in our souls from the moment of our baptisms as long as we avoid serious sin.  When we commit serious sin, we are rejecting God.  Just as when we reject our friends, they seem distant or lost, so too it is with Jesus.  Thankfully, Jesus is merciful and will forgive us thru His priests in the confessional so that we can be reconciled to Him.

Jesus can seem lost for other reasons as well, but some of the common reasons are to teach us something, our own lack of interest, and our sins.  If He is teaching us something, let us reflect on what that might be.  If we realize that we haven’t been seeking Him, then let us figure out what we will do differently to seek Him out.  If we think it might be sin, then let us make a good confession and have that relationship restored.