Luke 2

I know I'm really late with this... I've been flying solo while Matt was traveling for work, and while he's back in town today, I won't see him until late tonight. Keeping the house from falling apart, everyone fed and clothed and somewhat well-behaved, comforting the sad baby who got vaccines yesterday... There's no such thing as spare time or mental energy. But before we find ourselves even further into the week and I manage to talk myself into skipping this chapter entirely because I'm "too late," I'd better get something down on paper.

Luke 2 contains pretty much the whole of Jesus' childhood: the nativity, the presentation, the finding in the temple. It seemed, as I was reading, that there was a significant connection just begging to be made between that and the canonizations of Sts Louis and Zelie Martin this past Sunday... but I haven't been able to quite figure that connection out. 

"In His wisdom, God wanted it this way to remind us that the world is not our true home." – St Zelie Martin

How often Mary and Joseph must have been reminded of that! Scripture doesn't really tell us anything about Jesus as a child, apart from his being subject to his parents and advancing "in wisdom, and age, and grace before God and men." What a weighty responsibility Mary and Joseph were given, raising and teaching him. Little Bear and I were reading in his Pre-K religion book today about Jesus growing and learning just like him, but never doing anything wrong or sinful. What was it like, being His parents?

It's our task, as parents, to do everything we can to bring our children to heaven, to raise saints. Sts Louis and Zelie Martin succeeded. I pray that we will; some days, that sounds like a frighteningly difficult-to-impossible job. But thinking about what was asked of Mary and Joseph, raising and teaching the Son of God, being the ones whom He obeyed as a child... wow. Humanly, that's a truly impossible task, but they weren't asked to do it on their own human strength; God gave them the graces they needed, just as He makes available to us the graces we need for the responsibilities He's entrusted to us.