A reading from the first book of Samuel (1:20-22, 24-28)
Hannah conceived and, in due course, gave birth to a son, whom she named Samuel, because ‘I asked for him from the Lord.’ The man Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfil his vow. But Hannah did not go, for she had said to her husband, ‘As soon as the child has been weaned I shall bring him and he will appear before the Lord and stay there for ever.’
When she had weaned him, she took him up with her, as well as a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and took him into the temple of the Lord at Shiloh; the child was very young. They sacrificed the bull and led the child to Eli. She said, ‘If you please, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood beside you here, praying to the Lord. This is the child for which I was praying, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. Now I make him over to the Lord. For the whole of his life he is made over to the Lord.’ Then they worshipped the Lord there.
Elkanah had two wives. Peninah had children, but Hannah had none, and was mocked by Peninah. Having waited so long for an answer to her prayer, finally Hannah conceives and Samuel is born. It is extraordinary that Hannah is ready to offer her ‘very young’ child to the Lord for ever. In her gratitude she considers the gift received as a gift to be given back to the Lord. She leaves him with the priest Eli at Shiloh so that he can serve the Lord ‘for the whole of his life’. It is as if she knows that the Lord has a mission for this longed-for son, who will be the final judge of Israel and anoint both Saul and David as kings.
Psalm 84 (83) proclaims the happiness of those who dwell in the Lord’s house.
A reading from the first letter of saint John (3:1-2, 21-24)
See what great love the Father has lavished on us
by letting us be called God’s children,
and that is what we are!
The reason why the world does not know us
is that it did not know him.
My dear friends, we are already God’s children,
but what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We know that when he appears
we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is.
My dear friends,
if our own hearts do not condemn us,
we can be fearless before God,
and whatever we ask
we shall receive from him,
because we keep his commandments
and do what is pleasing to him.
His commandment is this,
that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ
and that we should love one another
as he commanded us.
Whoever keeps his commandments
abides in God, and God in that person.
And by this we know that he abides in us,
by the Spirit that he has given us.
The reading brings together two short sections from the third chapter of the first letter of St John, which consider our identity as ‘children of God’, and how we should follow his commandments. John addresses Christians as ‘my dear friends’, or literally ‘beloved’ (agapetoi). Those who believe in Christ are children of God, with the hope of being ‘like God’, and seeing God as God really is. In the final verses of the chapter, introduced again by ‘my dear friends’ (agapetoi), it is asserted that we can be ‘fearless’ in the presence of God, asking whatever we wish, because we are members of the family of God and keepers of God’s commandments. John explains that the commandment is that we believe ‘in the name of his Son Jesus Christ’, and that we love one another. This means that we ‘abide’ (menein) in God, and God in us. We know this to be true because we have received the Spirit.
A reading from the holy gospel according to Luke (2:41-52)
Every year the parents of Jesus used to go to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up for the festival as usual. When the days of the festival were over and they set off home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem without his parents knowing it. They assumed he was in the party, and after a day’s journey they started looking for him among their relations and acquaintances. When they could not find him they went back to Jerusalem looking for him.
It happened that, after three days, they found him in the Temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them, and asking them questions; and all those who heard him were astounded at his intelligence and his replies. When they saw him they were overcome, and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? See, your father and I have been searching for you anxiously.’ He replied, ‘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 was saying to them.
He went down with them then 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 divine and human favour.
This gospel story is unique in that it is the only account relating to the ‘hidden life’ of Jesus. The parents of Jesus are once again portrayed as faithful in their observance of Jewish law, going up with the twelve-year old Jesus on the Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem, just as Elkanah went year by year to the sanctuary of Shiloh. The young Samuel had been deliberately left with Eli, while this story tells, in a way which parents will recognise, that they ‘lose’ Jesus, who stays behind in the temple. The story suggests that the young Jesus had a consciousness that he should be ‘in his Father’s house’, or involved ‘in the things of his Father’. The parents are unable to understand what he means, but, for a second time (2:19), it is stated that Mary pondered ‘all these things’ (pemata) in her heart. This is also the occasion for the evangelist to point to the human growth of Jesus ‘in wisdom, in stature, and in divine and human favour’. In reference to John the Baptist the evangelist had spoken of growth ‘in spirit’ (1:80).
What do these readings teach about the proper attitude of parents to their children?
Jesus was like us in all things but sin, and needed to learn and grow.