I Have Lost My Child

I have not experienced the death of any of my children. As a father, I never had occasion to ponder the possibility that at any particular moment, one of my children might be dead. Yet, I hear of such events daily. For every child reported in the news to have died, there is a grieving family. The horror of such an event happening, is something I cannot fully imagine.

It is precisely that prospect that causes a parent to panic at losing a child for a moment, even in a familiar grocery store. Uncertainty feeds panic, and fear sets in. Without a visual or verbal assurance that the child is safe, a parent envisions the worst. Cognitive thinking evaporates. Moments of reflection vanish into an increasingly hurried search.

“Have you seen my son?” “He is wearing a white shirt”. “Sir, have you seen my boy?” Blank responses serve only to elevate the concern.

And then … after imagining the worst and yielding to total despair … there he is, safe – unconcerned as if nothing has happened! It is not hard to imagine how such a parent could be simultaneously upset, relieved and delighted.

Lost and Found

“What were you thinking, wandering away from me? Did you not know that I would be worried sick?” All of it while hugging the child tightly, perhaps overwhelmed by tears. In that one moment, all the fear is replaced with unimaginable joy. The young son who was lost has been found.

We cannot read today’s Gospel without putting ourselves in the story. Jesus was thought to be in the caravan returning home from Jerusalem, after celebrating Passover. He was already 12 and could therefore be in the company of His father and the other men. Since He was only 12, He might instead be traveling with His mother. In reality He was with neither.

Some find it a bit difficult to process Jesus’ response at being found. Perhaps the final words of the Gospel help:

“Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

But they did not understand what He said to them.

He went down with them and came to Nazareth,

and was obedient to them;

and His mother kept all these things in her heart.”

Great Joy of Heaven When the Lost is Found

Jesus was in His Father’s house, a high calling without a doubt, but He had underestimated His mother’s concern, and invariably learned from it.

Later in life, rabbi Jesus often taught in parables.

The parables would have drawn from His life experiences, including the time He was thought lost and then found in the Temple. The parable of a woman and her disproportionate joy upon finding a lost coin, and the parable of the lost sheep, likely flowed from the memory of His mother’s apprehension and succeeding joy from that prior event.

Jesus would have understood as our older brother, reminded by His mother’s example – the preoccupation of our heavenly Father over restoring His human family, and the great joy in the heaven, when those who were lost had been found (cf Lk 15:1-32).

[2 Cor 5:14-21; 103:1-2, 3-4, 9-10, 11-12; Lk 2:41-51]