Naimbag a Pascua Yo Amen! Ken Naragsat Ken a Baro a Tawen—2025!
Trust God’s plan—2025 “faith” when lost—trust God’s timing for your “life” when found!
Deacon Patrick Constantino | Photos: Patrick Constantino
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke (2:41-52):
Each year Jesus’ 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 favor before God and man. The Gospel of the Lord.
“After three days they found him in the temple …”
This story, The Finding in the Temple, raises many questions. And it does so because we can sort of relate to the situation it presents. Oh, not in the details. But who among us has not lost something or someone and looked for it or her or him frantically? And when what we fear we have lost is a person, well that is the scariest of all. And so, this story really gets our attention. And the most pressing question it poses to the modern reader is, “How could they have left Jesus behind in the first place?”
I wish Luke had known or had included a few more details because the premise of the story is a little hard to wrap our minds around.
I am glad they were only out of town one day before they realized their mistake. Even that seems like a long time. But even when they returned to Jerusalem it still took a while for them to find their son.
I guess it is not surprising. Jerusalem was a pretty big city, so there would have been many places to look, many different people to ask. And Luke tells us they looked for three days before finding Jesus.
They must have been worried sick. And my guess is, they did what any of us would have done—looked in the most obvious places first.
Maybe they first went back to the place they stayed at. Maybe they checked with people they had done business with or whatever. In any event, it seems it took three days to check for Jesus in the most obvious places.
But then they did the thing which made all the difference—they considered a less obvious place.
It was not a place they imagined he would be or else they would have checked there sooner. After all, why would their young son be hanging out with a bunch of older guys and on top of that, impressing them in the process?
Yet, at some point, they must have thought, “Where haven’t we looked yet? What places have not we considered?” And it was this thinking outside the box that ultimately led Joseph and Mary to finally find Jesus.
Of course, they were certainly puzzled by all of it. But most certainly, they were overjoyed their family was back together. And we still contemplate this reunion as one of the Joyful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary.
Of course, to Jesus, this was the most obvious place to look for him. In his mind, it made perfect sense. “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” After all, the temple specifically the off-limits space called the Holy of Holies was where God dwelt. And so, it may seem logical to us today, given who we believe Jesus to be. But to Mary and Joseph, this was not that obvious at all.
Yet, they ultimately found their boy by looking for him where they really did not expect him to be.
I guess we should not be that surprised Mary and Joseph were able to be open to a different possibility, open to an unlikely outcome. After all, they were able to embrace just such an out-of-the-box situation twelve years before.
As you well know, Joseph through an angel was asked to marry a woman carrying a child who was not biologically his and believe the Holy Spirit was what brought it about. And Mary was asked also through an angel to bear God’s son also simply through the power of the Holy Spirit.
No one in human history had ever been asked these things before. Yet, somehow, both were able to step out in faith, to accept what they believed to be God’s will—even when it almost certainly made little or no sense to them.
Clearly, Joseph and Mary were people who were willing to accept that God’s ways might look very different from anything they could expect or maybe even imagine. And maybe that is one of the things which makes them holy.
And so, while there are certainly many things we can learn from the Holy Family—and many things about them we should strive to imitate—maybe today we are invited to focus on one simple and not so simple thing. And it is this: Let us continue to do what Mary and Joseph first did that worrisome few days long ago—continue to look for Jesus in the obvious places. For us, that is in the silence of prayer. And in Sacred Scripture. And in the Sacraments. And in the Sacred Liturgy—particularly in the sacred meal we share around this table.
In a certain sense, these are places we know through life and faith that we will encounter our Lord Jesus. But also like Mary and Joseph, let’s look for Jesus in the not-to-obvious places too, look for our loving God in not just the friend but in the stranger; not just in the successes but in the failures; not just in the joys but in the sorrows; not just in the people we like but in the people we don’t like; not just in the saintly but in the sinful too. Jesus is in all these places, all these people.
And while some of these things are not necessarily obvious to us, they are obvious to Jesus—the one who continually told stories with surprise endings, the one who challenged the way things had always been, the one who would constantly reach out to people no one wanted anything to do with.
Our not-so-obvious places show us a God who simply does what God does—loves every single one of us more than we can imagine.
And so, if you are looking for Him, that is where and who He will be.
Jesus, help us find you, recognize you, encounter you. Mary and Joseph, please pray for us! Jesus I trust in You! Amen!
If you are struggling with anything in 2025, please read my homily reflections and it will help you get through it! God is good! All the time! Happy New Year!
This song by Peter and Hanneke Jacobs, titled “Spirit of God” also helps me get through things!
I can almost see Your holiness
As I look around this place
With our hands raised up
To receive Your love
I can see You on each face
Spirit of God lift me up
Spirit of God lift me up
Fill me again with Your love
Sweet Spirit of God
Sing this song and it will help you in your good times and bad times! Amen!
Deacon Patrick Constantino retired from active Ministry on July 1, 2022. He is still a Deacon in good standing with full faculties to perform all sacraments in the Diocesan of Honolulu Hawai‘i. Constantino has been ordained for thirty-seven years. He is the first Filipino Deacon in the Diocesan of Honolulu. Prior to his ordination, Constantino was in government—first appointed in 1966 as Assistant Sergeant of Arms by the Speaker of the House Elmer F. Cravalho. When Cravalho became Maui’s first Mayor, Constantino became his Executive Assistant—the first of Filipino ancestry. Later, Constantino became the first County Treasurer of Filipino ancestry and the first County Grants Administrator and Risk Manager of Filipino ancestry. Constantino is married to his lovely wife Corazon for sixty-four years. They are blessed with four children, eleven grandchildren, and fifteen great grandchildren.