Musical Rosary #5–Finding Jesus in the Temple

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.

It’s a commonplace to talk about the Bible as the love story of God and man. But we can get more specific and say that the Bible–salvation history–is a comedy of remarriage, like The Philadelphia Story. (Uh, spoilers?) It’s not only a story of union (Righteousness and peace shall kiss each other) but reunion. And the reunion is closer than the initial union could have been.

This final joyful mystery is one I often pray for people who are searching for God or who find it hard to perceive Him; and also for myself, when I’m finding it really hard to see Him in the people around me. This song–which is probably my favorite pop song in world history–brings together two wine-rich voices, the blue-moon man and the velvet chanteuse. It isn’t specifically about reunion, but I love its teasing suggestion that love, once found, can last. This life and its turmoil may be only the beginning of love.