NOTES for Luk 2:49

The twelve-year-old Lord Jesus, remaining in the Jerusalem Temple, answers the sorrowful question of His Most Pure Mother by speaking of His Father's House. This is the House in which He must be. Perhaps this thought served as the basis for the revelation of the Book of Proverbs: "Wisdom has built her house..." The evangelist paints two pictures at once: the teachers and scribes marvel at Jesus' wisdom, while His parents search for Him through the city in distress. His answer to His Mother sounds like a riddle: where else should a boy be, if not at his father's house? A person should live at home. Already then the Lord begins to reveal to people His origin and vocation: He is God's Wisdom and God's Son.

But there is another important aspect of this event. The Lord speaks of the House belonging to His heavenly Father; in fact, this is what in our language is called "fatherland." And when we read that His fatherland is heaven, should we not ask where our own fatherland is? Not the territory where the people who gave birth to us live, but fatherland in a deeper sense. Where are we from, and where is the house that we could call our eternal dwelling? Trying to answer this question, we understand that thanks to the Incarnation of the Son of God, His fatherland becomes ours as well, and through Him we acquire an eternal Home.