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Join us as we reflect, ponder, and pray together inspired by today's Gospel.

 Today's Gospel: Luke 2:41-51 - Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Have you ever started down a road, quite certain that you were doing exactly the right thing, going about your regular routine with your regular assumptions… until you were brought up short with the realization that everything was not, in fact, as it should be?

It happens to the best of us -- I mean, the literal best of us. Even the Blessed Mother and good St. Joseph set out for home among a caravan of relatives secure (so they thought) in the assumption that their Son, the Lord and Savior of the universe, was with them.

He was not.

We, too, continue on with our plans, assuming that Jesus is with us, trotting along obediently at our side. But sometimes, we have continued blithely forward without Him, right into confusion, chaos, and even despair. You can hear this note of despair in the reprimand that Mary gives to Jesus, when they are reunited: “Why have you done this to us?”

"Done this to us." It can be a natural response to those moments of confusion and lostness: to feel that Jesus has done something to us. You changed the plan, Jesus! We were going this way, remember? What we need to remember, though, is that the plan is always His. Jesus was exactly where God required him to be, and he reproaches Mary right back: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

Our responsibility: to never take our eyes off of Him, to check in with Him at every step, to keep ourselves close to Him. If we have lost Him, it is up to us to follow Mary’s model and turn the caravan around, to not stop searching until we find our way back to His side.

If we have lost Jesus, it is up to us to follow Mary’s model and turn the caravan around, to not stop searching until we find our way back to His side.

 

Ponder:

Where are you running ahead of Jesus, assuming He will follow along?

Pray:

Dear God, please grant me a share in Mary’s Immaculate Heart, right next to Christ’s Sacred Heart. Keep me always at His side.

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Copyright 2020 Christy Wilkens