His mother kept all these things in her heart

28 JUNE (Lk 2,41-51)

Jesus is the true Master and everyone has to go to his school. Even his Mother must become his disciple. She needs to learn from him how to look perpetually towards the cross. With divine pedagogy, with heavenly wisdom, with all spiritual intelligence already from the age of twelve, Jesus goes up the chair and starts before any other person to give the righteous, true and holy teachings to his Mother.

What needs the Virgin Mary to learn from her divine Son? Tomorrow she will have to offer to the Father right her own divine Son. She must offer him as a crucifix, on Golgotha. She must be infinitely more than Abraham, more than Isaac, more than Jacob, more than Moses and all other prophets and righteous persons of the Old Testament. She must offer her divine Son to the Father with a most holy conscience, with a perfectly free will, with a most pure heart and with feelings all in accordance with the will of the heavenly Father.

One must prepare himself to this great offer. Of course you cannot prepare yourself alone. There has to be a master of very high moral and spiritual qualities. We need a real teacher in the Holy Spirit. This task falls onto the Son of the Most High. Nobody more than him might carry out with fruit this ministry of education to the cross. Jesus gives the first lesson at twelve years. He stops in Jerusalem without saying anything either to Joseph and or to Mary. They make a day’s journey, thinking the one that Jesus were with the other and vice versa. When the evening the family gathers, they note the absence of Jesus. They set off again. They return to Jerusalem. Jesus is in the house of his Father that is teaching a class of divine not human wisdom, to the great teachers.

He is the Doctor that enlightens every doctrine. From this moment, from the moment of his entrance into the temple, any other doctrine is declared not true that does not conform to his teaching. This is the truth of this remaining of Jesus in Jerusalem by the Father’s will. He is appointed by God the only Doctor, the only Master, the only Professor, the only scribe of the Father. All others must breathe of his truth, wisdom, doctrine, science, if they want to talk about the true God. Otherwise either they speak of a God that was, or they will say only falsehoods and lies about God that it is today.

Each year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? 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. And Jesus advanced (in) wisdom and age and favour before God and man.

The Virgin Mary hints a word of request for some explanation. She wishes she knew the reasons for his stay in Jerusalem. Jesus is immediate in the response. He must take care of things concerning his Father. His mother cannot ignore these things. She must keep them fixed in her heart. Not today. Always. Forever. Never might she forget them. For this reason He came to teach the things of the Father, to do the will of the Father. Mary must also learn from Jesus how do the Father’s will, because tomorrow she must herself offer Christ to the Father, on Mount Calvary. Who then is the Virgin Mary? She is the one who must always offer Christ to the Father, give him as a gift. Today, helping him so that he lives in total freedom. Tomorrow, by not impeding him in the gift of the Gospel. Finally, leading him to the cross and offering him.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints, teach us how to love the cross.